Ennead

Geb

The earthVegetation

How it changed

Notable as an inversion: in most neighbouring traditions the earth is female and the sky male. In Egypt it is the reverse, and the arrangement is deliberate rather than accidental.

Cult centre

Heliopolis

Best attested

Old Kingdom onward

Family

Son of Shu and Tefnut; brother-husband of Nut.

Epithets

“Hereditary prince of the gods”

How to recognise the figure

A man lying beneath the arched Nut, sometimes green-skinned with plants growing from him.

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.

Worshipped at

Iunu

now Cairo, under the suburb of Ain Shams

Others in this group

Nut

Heliopolis

Shu

Heliopolis

Tefnut

Heliopolis, and Leontopolis