Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (11 page)

Who was the first family of Egyptian myth?

Most people have to cope with annoying family members and brotherly spats. Egypt’s Great Ennead—the first family of the gods—took those fraternal quarrels to cosmic heights and created the core myths of ancient Egypt. All of the most significant deities in the Egyptian world grew out of the Heliopolis Creation story, which continued as the twin brother and sister, Shu and Tefnut, became the first divine couple. They next produced another pair of twins,
Geb
and his sister,
Nut
, the grandchildren of the sun god Atum. Geb was the male earth god and his sister-consort, the female Nut, represented the sky and heavens.

There are two Egyptian versions of how earth and sky were separated. In one, they were locked together in an embrace at birth, and Atum, their grandfather, told Shu to separate the twins. In a second account of their separation, Geb and Nut married, but Atum, the sun god, was angry, since he was not informed of the match and had not approved it. He ordered their father, Shu, to push Nut away from Geb into the sky. Standing on Geb, Shu forced Nut upward to form the great arch of the sky, with her hands and feet resting on the four points of the compass. Nut is usually depicted in Egyptian art in this position—hands and feet straddling the earth, with her back arched to form the heavens. As the sky goddess, Nut was traditionally shown as covered with starlike speckles—and stars were later explained in Egyptian religion as the spirits of the dead who had gone to join the gods in the heavens. Nut’s laughter became the thunder, and her tears were the rain.

Apart from Nut’s role as mother of other gods, she played a central role in the most essential aspect of Egyptian religious belief—the daily passage of the sun. Every day, the sun god made his journey from dawn to dusk in a boat across the underside of Nut’s arched body. At the end of the day, Nut swallowed the sun god and his boat (a symbolic daily death) which then traveled the inside length of her body—equivalent to traveling through the Egyptian underworld, known as the
Duat
. Each morning, she gave birth, and the sun god emerged from her womb. According to this myth, the redness of the sky at dawn was explained as the bloody afterbirth that accompanied the sun god’s birth each day.

This myth was the great beating heart, focal point of all Egyptian belief. The sun’s daily birth and death symbolized the eternal cycle of life and death. For Egyptians, life and death and the role of the sun as life-giver were all tied together in the regular cycle of the flooding of the Nile, which brought the fertility to the soil and the harvest that sustained Egypt. It carried over into the Egyptians’ core belief that humans could also live, die, and be reborn. In that fundamental idea of death and resurrection lay the basic foundation for all of Egypt society and worship.

In the continuation of the Creation story, when Nut became the sky and heavens, her brother-husband, Geb, was forced to lie down and become the earth. As god of the earth, Geb was thought to be the cause of earthquakes, which were attributed either to his laughter or his wailing for his sister-bride. Geb was especially significant, because as earth god, he was responsible for the fertility of the lands, and he is often depicted with his phallus stretching up toward his sister. Some accounts say that the obelisk was designed as a symbol of Geb’s phallus pointing heavenward to impregnate Nut. In other versions of this myth, Geb became the first king of Egypt, establishing the divine connection between the king and the gods.

Before Geb and Nut were separated, they produced children, and the Egyptian Creation continued as the four most important children of Geb and Nut were born: Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys.
Osiris
, their eldest child, became one of the most significant gods in the Egyptian pantheon. He was widely worshipped in popular religion as a god of fertility, death, and resurrection. Originally a god of vegetation, Osiris was credited with bringing plants and seasons to the earth, teaching humans to farm, and creating civilization. He abolished cannibalism, taught men to use tools, and showed them how to make wine and bread. He also ruled on earth and became the first pharaoh, instituting both religion and the legal system. Most significant, he later became the judge of the dead, a crucial role in a society so concerned with the afterlife. (See Isis-Osiris below.)

Geb and Nut’s second child was
Isis
, who was both the twin sister and wife of Osiris, and another of the most significant figures in Egyptian myth. In some versions of the myth, her story begins in the womb, where she first makes love to Osiris, her brother and husband. Credited with creating the Nile River with the tears she wept at the death of Osiris, she taught the Egyptians how to grind flour, spin, and weave and was a healer goddess who could cure illnesses. Isis was also credited with introducing marriage.

One of the most widely worshipped figures in all mythology, Isis became the focal point of a religious cult that survived for thousands of years and was passed on to other civilizations, including Greece and Rome. She was known as the Great Mother, devoted wife and a powerful source of magic, and Isis worship continued to flourish down to Christian times. When the Christianized Roman Emperor Theodosius I officially banned Isis worship in 378 CE, her temples were destroyed, often replaced by Christian churches.

The third child of Geb and Nut was the evil
Seth
(also
Set
), the brother and enemy of Osiris. A storm god who may have originated as a desert deity, he was sometimes regarded as the incarnation of evil, and the force of disturbances and discord in the world. An ill-tempered god, Seth personified rage, anger, and violence.

But Seth also played a positive role in the sun-god ritual. As a powerful deity, he was charged with protecting and defending the sun god during his nightly journey through the underworld. During the night, the sun god’s boat, or barque, was attacked by
Apep
(or
Apophis
), the serpent of chaos, sometimes also depicted as a crocodile. In an interesting parallel to the biblical serpent, Apep is called the “great Rebel” and “evil One.” Possibly based upon the deadly African python and then merged with the crocodile—two of the Nile’s most fearsome and deadly creatures—Apep may be one of the oldest versions of the dragon. Seth is often shown as the one who spears Apep, the lord of darkness, when he attacks the barque each night in its travels through the Duat.

But Seth’s most important role lies in the story of his hatred for his favorite brother. The profound jealousy resulting in blood feuds between brothers—sibling rivalry played out on a cosmic scale—is a common theme in mythical and biblical stories. Just as Cain was jealous of Abel and killed him, and Isaac cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance in Genesis, Seth resented his brother’s success and great stature. There is a suggestion that this mythical rivalry may have been a symbolic account of the political rivalry between two regions of Egypt. As a desert god of the “Red Land,” Seth was viewed as the force of destruction and chaos that threatened vegetation, and their conflict, played out in the saga of Isis and Osiris (see below), is a central piece of one of the most significant myths in world history.

The fourth child of Geb and Nut was
Nephthys
, who clearly plays second fiddle to her older sister Isis, the superstar of Egyptian myth. First married to her brother Seth, Nephthys deserted Seth for her other brother, Osiris. Seemingly barren with Seth, she conceives a child who becomes the jackal-headed god
Anubis
, another key deity in Egyptian burial rituals. Nephthys also becomes significant as a funerary goddess who protects the dead and is often shown on coffins and jars that held the vital organs of the deceased. In Egyptian funeral customs, two women would impersonate Isis and Nephthys to lament over the mummy of the deceased on the funeral boat that carried the deceased to the western side of the Nile, where it would be buried.

These nine deities—Atum, his children Shu and Tefnut, their children Geb and Nut, and their children Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys—were responsible for bringing all other life into being. They are traditionally known by the Greek word for nine,
ennea
, as the Great Ennead.

Who was Re?

The boggling variety of these Egyptian Creation stories, along with the various sun gods and creator gods, point up one of the challenges of Egyptian mythology. Lacking a biblical-style story structure, Egypt’s mythology does not follow a single narrative stream but emerged gradually as local customs and beliefs were blended over centuries and finally integrated into a unified Egyptian religion, often reflecting the changing balance of power in Egypt. Most historians believe that as different regions or cities rose to prominence, their patron deities emerged as the most significant gods.

Still, a dominant force underlies all Egyptian myth. As in many other ancient societies, for the Egyptians it was the sun and its life-giving powers. The daily passage of the sun across the sky gave rise to many different metaphors and images. In the morning, the sun was born from the sky goddess Nut. At midday, it was a boat floating on the blue sea of heaven. It was even envisioned as a scarab beetle pushing a ball of dung across the sand. That would seem a profane image for an all-high god, but the Egyptians saw metaphors of life and death everywhere, especially in the animal world. The scarab—or dung—beetle lays its eggs in a ball of dung that it rolls to its burrow. Within the dung ball, the eggs incubate in the warmth of the sun. Even in the life cycle of one of the lowliest insects, Egyptians found the eternal image of life. This was the reason that scarabs became such a significant motif in Egyptian art.

Over time, the sun god Re (also called Ra) evolved into the most important member of the Egyptian pantheon, and for much of Egypt’s history, he was the supreme deity. Originating in Heliopolis (City of the Sun), Re emerged as the chief sun god, and his name originally may have meant “creator.” Re was considered both the ruler of the world and the first divine pharaoh. Although Re’s existence probably goes back much further in time, his name was first recorded during the Second Dynasty (2890–2686 BCE), and by the time of the Fourth Dynasty, Egypt’s kings were using the words “Son of Re” as one of their honorific titles. From the time of the Fourth Dynasty’s (2613–2494 BCE) King Khafra (also known as Chephren), the pyramids and other sacred buildings were linked with the name of Re. By the Fifth Dynasty (2494–2345 BCE), Re had essentially become the state god, and six of the seven Fifth Dynasty kings built temples exclusively dedicated to him. These sun temples, built near large pyramid complexes, established Re as the “ultimate giver of life and moving force,” according to Egyptologist Jaromir Malek. But these temples were also a statement by the pharaohs of their direct connection to Re, in this world and in the afterlife.