Iunu/Heliopolis

The ruins of Iunu lies under the suburbs of north-east Cairo. It was known to Herodotus ca 450 B.C. as Heliopolis. But already about 3000 B.C. this was where one of the most important and influential myths of creation was formulated. The earliest written source of this are the Pyramid Texts of Dynasty V and VI, the largest single collection of religious writings. They were probably composed mostly by the priesthood. They held their position and developed through time, until Amun became the state god at Thebes.

Nun or The Primeval Waters

Before the structured cosmos was created there was only darkness which held a limitless water; the primeval Nun, also called the Father of Gods. There were no temples built to Nun, but this deity is made present in many shrines as the sacred lake which symbolizes the non-existence before creation. The concept of the Primeval waters are common to all Egyptian creation myths. Even if their details differ, they are all explanations of how light and order was formed in the unordered, unstructured chaos of darkness and timelessness.

Atum

Out of Nun rose the creator of the world Atum or the Primeval Mound, "lord to the limit of the sky" and "lord of Heliopolis", who self-developed into a being, standing on a raised mound; i.e. the primeval mound, which became the Benben, a pyramid shaped stone, regarded as the dwelling place of the sun god.

Atum is therefore the creator god who created the universe, he is the supreme being and master of the forces and elements of the universe. Utterance 600 in the Pyramid Texts:

"O Atum! When you came into being you rose up as a High Hill,
You shone as the Benben Stone in the Temple of the Benu in Heliopolis."

The Benu bird is the prototype of the Greek Phoenix bird, which Herodotos some 2000 years later confused it with. Read about it here.

Here Atum is the Primeval Mound itself. This is understandable when we think of how the ground and banks along the Nile rose from the receding waters each year, soon sprouting new weeds and greenery, and animals and insects would inhabit them again. Life seemed to come out of the ground itself. This is the idea behind Atum, the Primeval Mound, the Creator god who within him contains the possibilities of every life form.

Then Atum created Shuand Tefnut, an extract from Papyrus Brehmer-Rhind states:

"All manifestations came into being after I developed...no sky existed no earth existed...I created on my own every being...my fist became my spouse...I copulated with my hand...I sneezed out Shu...I spat out Tefnut...Next Shu and Tefnut produced Geb and Nut...Geb and Nut then gave birth to Osiris...Seth, Isis, and Nephtys...ultimately they produced the population of this land."

Shu and Tefnut.

So Shu and Tefnut was the parents of Geb and Nut. In the Book of Going forth By Day (the Book of the Dead) the air god Shu is seen wearing an ostrich plume, which is the hieroglyph for his name. He is depicted lifting up the sky goddess Nut on his arms, separating her from her spouse Geb, the earth god, and thus acting like a barrier between them. The earth was considered male while the sky was female according to the Egyptian way of looking at things. More of this at another time.

Tefnut´s connection with moisture or dew is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. Maybe she is also the atmosphere of the Underworld, but the most noteworthy thing about her might be that she, as the daughter of the sun god has direct access to him and is therefore called the "Eye of Ra".

Nut and Geb

Nut, whose body is arched over Geb but separated from him after giving birth to their four children, became a very important deity, depicted with outstretched arms and legs, her body forming the sky, strewn with stars. She swallows the sun god at the end of every day. During the twelve hours of night he passes through her body and at dawn she gives birth to him on the eastern horizon.