Sunday, June 1, 2014
"None of You is Separate"
9:28am
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Oh you great Ennead which is in Heliopolis, Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, whom Atum, in giving birth to himself, brought into the world through the projection of his heart, in your name of Nine Bows - None of You is separate from Atum. - Pyramid Text, 6th Dynasty |
Julia found this address to the Ennead, with its glyphs and the translation in Temple of the Cosmos, by Jeremy Nayler, (Inner Traditions, 1996), page 142. I got out the favorite reference book, and learned Atum is "the great primeval deity of Heliopolis. His cult was a very ancient one and by the Old Kingdom he had risen tp a very high level of importance in Heliopolitan theology." (Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, (Thames and Hudson 2003),page 98) He is depicted in serpent form, and Wilkinson gave the Brooklyn museum papyrus as an example:
I'd drawn this earlier, because Snake!, not knowing its connection to Atum.
More frequently, he's given a fully human appearance, wearing the double crown, and "he may also be represented with the head of a ram, though this is more usual in depictions showing his solar or underworld aspects."(page 100) Not only that, but "mongoose, lion, bull, [] lizard, [] ape. [] In terms of his solar connections he may be depicted as a scarab, and the famous giant scarab which now stands by the sacred lake at Karnak was dedicated to Atum." (page 101)
Later on, when Amun becomes perceived as a universal creator, the primeval god Atum is then considered "an aspect of Amun, the same is true of the sun god Re." (Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets (Brill 2003), page 131.
Elsewhere in webland, some one was asking about titles of Set, and I was only too happy to show off my statue. There are several well known epithets of Set, some of which I had engraved on that Set sha statue:
