Creator
Atum
jtmHow it changed
The Heliopolitan creator, who brings the first pair into being alone, by masturbation or by spitting, in a text that states this without embarrassment. He is progressively absorbed into Ra as Ra-Atum, the sun in its evening form. Coffin Text 1130 has him say that at the end of the world he will dissolve everything back into the primordial water and remain alone with Osiris, in serpent form, which is one of the very few end-of-the-world statements in Egyptian religion.
Cult centre
Heliopolis
Best attested
Old Kingdom onward, in the Pyramid Texts from the beginning
Family
Self-created from Nun; father of Shu and Tefnut.
Epithets
- “The complete one”
- “Lord to the limit”
How to recognise the figure
A man in the double crown, or an old man leaning on a staff. Also a serpent, the form he returns to at the end of time.
Appears in
c. 2400 BCE, in the Pyramid Texts
Creation at Heliopolis
One god alone on a mound in the water, producing the first pair from himself.
Inscribed c. 700 BCE, claiming a much older original
Creation by speech at Memphis
Ptah conceives the world in his heart and speaks it into existence, and the text arguing this is a piece of political propaganda.
Worshipped at
Others in this group