Creation by Atum
Scroll of knowing the development of the Sun and of Overthrowing Apophis.
Recitation of the Lord to the Limit, which he spoke after he developed:
For my part, the fact is that I developed as Developer.
When I developed, development developed.
All development developed after I developed,
developments becoming many in emerging from my mouth,
without the sky having developed,
without the earth having developed,
without the ground or snakes having been created in that place.
It was out of the Waters, out of inertness, that I became tied together in them,
without having found a place in which I could stand.
I became effective in my heart,
I surveyed with my face.
I made every form alone,
without having sneezed Shu,
without having spat Tefnut,
without another having developed and acted with me.
When I surveyed in my heart by myself,
the developments of developments became many,
in the developments of children
and in the developments of their children.
For my part, the fact is that I acted as husband with my fist,
I copulated with my hand,
I let fall from my mouth by myself,
I sneezed Shu and spit Tefnut.
It is my father, the Waters, that tended them,
with my eye after them since the time they became apart from me.
After I developed as one god,
that was three gods with respect to me.
When I developed into this world,
Shu and Tefnut grew excited in the inert waters in which they were,
and brought me my eye after them.
Then Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Geb and Nut.
Then Geb and Nut gave birth to Osiris, Horus the Two-Eyed, Seth, Isis and Nephthys,
from one womb, one after the other,
and they gave birth to their multitude in this world.
From Papyrus Bremner-Rhind, translated by J. P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts
Apophis (Apep) is a snake representing chaos.
Snakes play an important symbolic role in Egypt. The pharaoh wears the uraeus
(the cobra snake) on his forehead as a symbol of power.
Shu – air
Tefnut – moisture
Geb – earth
Nut – sky
Ausar (Gr. Osiris)
Heru (Gr. Horus) – the falcon-headed son of Ausar and Isis
Seth – brother of Ausar
Isis – sister and wife of Ausar
Nephthys – sister of Isis and wife of Seth.
These nine ‘gods’ are the original cast of characters in the story of Egypt. More of them later when we look at the story of rebellion.
The Greeks renamed most of the Egyptian places and players which doesn’t help much and, even more confusing, today many places also have Arabic names.
Note that the Egyptian story of creation is about the Sun and not the whole universe. The story takes place in Heliopolis (Egyptian Annu, the biblical On) just north of Cairo, at the top of the delta. This is also the location of the bn bn (ben-ben) – the primeval mound.
From Wikipedia:
Benben or Ben-ben, in Egyptian mythology, specifically in the Heliopolitan tradition, was the mound that arose from the primordial waters, Nu, and on which the creator god Atum settled. In the Pyramid Texts, e.g. Utterances 587 and 600, Atum himself is at times referred to as “mound”. It was said to have turned into a small pyramid, located in Annu, which was the place Atum was said to dwell within. Other cities developed their own myths of the primeval mound. At Memphis the god Tatenen, an earth god and the origin of all things in the shape of food and viands, divine offers, all good things was the personification of the primeval mound.
