mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== [1]Ancient Egypt: History and culture Egyptian mythology: The Shabaka Stone - Memphite mythology _________________________________________________________________ [2]Main menu _________________________________________________________________ [3]Search this site N.B. This site is all about ancient Egypt. Including 'ancient' or 'Egypt' in your query is superfluous and will return inappropriate results. ____________________ Find! [4]Sitemap Indexed by [5]FreeFind Sekhmet and Ptah _ Sekhmet and Ptah _ Osiris _Osiris _ Anubis _Anubis _ Horus _Horus _ Egyptian Mythology by Charles H. Long From time immemorial Egypt has been known as the country of two lands: The desertlike Upper Egypt, or the Red Land, and Lower Egypt, or the Black Land, where the soil is fertile. Even today 99 percent of the Egyptian population live in the Black Land. The significance of this duality is more than a geographical and demographic fact; it is a basic element in the very beginnings of the culture of the ancient Egyptians and finds significant expression in their religion and myths. Ancient Egyptian culture, myth, and religion might be characterized as a duality with rhythmic structures contained within a static unity. Unlike Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt as a civilization did not develop several powerful city-states along two rivers. Egypt had one river of significance, the Nile, and smaller villages grew up alongside its banks. Each of these village communities manifested a mythology, but these mythologies did not create tensions among the communities. In ancient Egypt the tendency was toward unity and stasis, not confrontation and tension. A text that exemplifies this attitude, while taking into account older historical and local traditions, is the theology of Memphis, recorded on the [6]Shabaka Stone. The Memphite theology presents the teachings of Menes, who established (c.3000 BC) a new capital at Memphis. In this theology all local and former mythological traditions are brought to their theological goal in the god [7]Ptah. The text is a cosmology that describes the creation of the world and the unity of the land of Egypt as a process in the eternal ordering of the world. Ptah creates everything from notions that were in his heart and are then pronounced by his tongue. All things--the universe, living beings, justice, beauty, and so on--are created in this manner. The gods are also created in this way; coming forth first as concepts of Ptah's mind, they enter into the material forms of the world--stone, metal, wood--that have equally been created out of Ptah. _From the Shabaka Stone [King of Upper and Lower Egypt] is this Ptah, who is called the great name: [Ta-te]nen [South-of-his-Wall, Lord of eternity] [the joiner] of Upper and Lower Egypt is he, this uniter who arose as king of Upper Egypt and arose as king of Lower Egypt. "Self-begotten," so says Atum: "who created the Nine Gods." _ The Memphite theology takes over older local notions of creation, such as that of Hermopolis, which describes creation proceeding from eight primordial beings of chaos who inhabited the primeval slime. The four males are toads, and the four females snakes, forming the pairs of Nun and Naunet (primordial matter and primordial space); Kuk and Kauket (the illimitable and the boundless); Huh and Hauhet (darkness and obscurity); Amon and Amaunet (hidden and concealed ones). These eight bring forth the sun, and in the Memphite theology they are said to come forth from [8]Ptah himself. Another part of the Memphite mythology takes up myths from the Old Kingdom about the gods Horus and Seth. These two deities contend for authority over Egypt; another deity, Geb, the earth-god, acts as mediator. Geb first partitions the country between the two, then, changing his mind, gives the entire country to Horus. In the Memphite theology, the pharaoh Menes is identified with Horus. That theology also makes Geb homologous to Ptah, but in another mythological context Geb, the power in the earth, is supreme. He is the primeval hillock that is the symbol of the first creation. For the Egyptians the earth deity is male rather than female. _[Geb, lord of the gods, commanded] that the Nine Gods gather to him. He judged between Horus and Seth; he ended their quarrel. He made Seth the king of Upper Egypt in the land of Upper Egypt, up to the place in which he was born, which is Su. And Geb made Horus King of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt, up to the place in which his father was drowned which is "Division-of-the-Two-Lands." Thus Horus stood over one region, and Seth stood over one region. They made peace over the Two Lands at Ayan. That was the division of the Two Lands. ... Then it seemed wrong to Geb that the portion of Horus was like the portion of Seth. So Geb gave Horus his inheritance, for he is the son of his firstborn son. _ In the Old Kingdom mythology the sun [9]Atum (or Aten) often appears as the first creator. He makes Shu and Tefnut (air and moisture) out of himself, and they in turn produce Geb and Nut (earth and sky). The children of the latter couple are [10]Osiris, [11]Isis, [12]Seth, and Nepthys. Thus the first four deities establish the cosmos, and the later four are mediators between humans and the cosmos. Osiris is the symbol of the dead king, who is succeeded in the form of [13]Horus, the living ruler. Isis is the consort of Osiris, and after his murder by Seth, she reconstitutes his body and thus achieves for him eternal life; her ally in this role is Nepthys, the consort of Seth. Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, ultimately vanquishes Seth, a symbol of antistructure or antiorder. Seth is related to the desert of Upper Egypt. As a deity of clouds, he opposed [14]Atum, the sun. _His (Ptah's) Ennead is before him as teeth and lips. They are the semen and the hands of Atum. For the Ennead of Atum came into being through his semen and his fingers. But the Ennead is the teeth and the lips in this mouth which pronounced the name of every thing, from which Shu and Tefnut came forth, and which gave birth to the Ennead. _ Although kingship appears as the pivot around which Egyptian mythology revolves, the key mythological themes are creation, procreation, revival, and the unity of the two lands. The temporal pharaoh was only a symbol of these orders. The power behind them is expressed in the sun, in the earth, and in animals, especially cattle. The language and symbols of power may at any time be translated from one into another--for example, the sun might be described in the symbolism of cattle or the earth in the symbolism of the sun. In the theology of the New Kingdom, the supreme god was Amon-Re, an identification of the Theban (and Hermopolitan) creator-god Amon with the sun-god Ra (successor to Atum). From an article by Charles H.Long _He (Ptah) gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes, He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled their offerings, He established their shrines, He made their bodies according to their wishes. Thus the gods entered into their bodies, Of every wood, every stone, every clay, Every thing that grows upon him In which they came to be. Thus were gathered to him all the gods and their Kas, Content, united with the Lord of the Two Lands. _ _________________________________________________________________ The excerpts from the Shabaka Stone text were taken from [15]The Shabaka Stone: Our Guide to the Memphite Theology _________________________________________________________________ - [16]- Main Index and Search Page _Descriptions of some of the gods_ [17]- Anubis [18]- Amen [19]- Aten [20]- Bast [21]- Bes [22]- Hathor [23]- Horus [24]- Isis [25]- Khnum [26]- Khons [27]- Mut [28]- Osiris [29]- Ptah [30]- Sekhmet [31]- Seth [32]- Re [33]- Thoth _Offsite links _ (Opening in a new window) These are just suggestions for further study. I do not assume any responsibility for the content or availability of these websites. [34]- La teología menfita: Mito de creación by Susana Romero [35]- The Memphite Theology [36]- Memphite Theology [37]- Two Approaches to an Egyptian Pantheon [38]- Realm of the Gods [39]- Brief Biographies of Egyptian Gods by Shawn C. Knight [40]- Egyptian Mythological Characters [41]- Akhet: A site dedicated to Egyptian Religion, its Gods and Goddesses, Temple life, Priesthood, Rituals and Philosophy [42]- Dieux et religion by Renaud de Spens Feedback: Please report broken links, mistakes - factual or otherwise, etc. to [43]me. Thanks. _________________________________________________________________ xhtml validated [44]- References 1. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/index.html 2. LYNXIMGMAP:file://localhost/www/sat/files/egypt/egyptian_mytholog.htm#mainmenu 3. http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=6359261 4. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/sitemap.htm 5. http://www.freefind.com/ 6. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pds/shabaka.htm 7. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ptah.htm 8. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ptah.htm 9. http://www.kemet.org/nfrnames/aten.html 10. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#osiris 11. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#isis 12. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#set 13. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#horus 14. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/aten.htm 15. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pds/shabaka.htm 16. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/index.html 17. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/anubis.htm 18. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/amen.htm 19. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/aten.htm 20. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/bast.htm 21. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/bes.htm 22. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/hathor.htm 23. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#horus 24. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#isis 25. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/khnum.htm 26. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/amen.htm 27. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/amen.htm 28. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#osiris 29. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ptah.htm 30. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/ptah.htm 31. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/osiris.htm#set 32. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/re.htm 33. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/thoth.htm 34. http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/0102/menfita.html 35. http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/Egypt/Memphis.html 36. http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/prehistory/egypt/religion/memphite.html 37. http://www.hist.unt.edu/ane-06.htm 38. http://gtae.users.btopenworld.com/godsintro.htm 39. http://egypt.sk4p.net/gods.shtml 40. http://www.kingtutone.com/links/pages/Gods/ 41. http://aker.virtualave.net/ 42. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/thotweb/encyclopedie/dieux.htm 43. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/feedback.htm 44. http://sm2.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=sm2egypt