The Egyptian Creation Myth: Atum and the Ennead
The Egyptian creation myth: from the primordial Nun to Atum, the birth of the Heliopolitan Ennead and the order of the world against the chaos of Apophis.
Egyptian mythology
Egyptian mythology stories
Egyptian mythology left no long continuous poem: its stories are pieced together from the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead and, for the Osiris myth, the treatise Plutarch drew from it around AD 100. They include rival cosmogonies from Heliopolis, Hermopolis and Memphis, the murder of Osiris by Seth and Horus' recovery of the throne, and the weighing of the heart that decides the fate of the dead. Each story flags what comes from Egyptian sources and what rests only on Greek authors.
Creation myths
This theme across all mythologies → Death and afterlife
This theme across all mythologies →
The Judgment of the Dead in ancient Egyptian mythology
The Egyptian Judgment of the Dead: the Hall of Two Truths, the Negative Confession before forty-two divine assessors, and Anubis weighing the heart against Maat's feather.
The Osiris myth: death, resurrection and the judgment of the dead in Egypt
The complete Osiris myth: murder by Seth, Isis's quest, dismemberment, reassembly and resurrection — the founding narrative of ancient Egyptian funerary theology.