mardi 8 juillet 2008

Capricornus 6


The Egyptian ideas about conditions prior to creation go back to the Pyramid Texts from the Old Kingdom, inscribed between 2400-2200 B.C., which proposed that the world emerged from a primeval darkness (keku semau) and a primeval flood (nun) that are indistinguishable from one another. Blended together they represent all that was prior to creation. This was a time when nothing existed, as it was an undifferentiated state.

From the book ‘IDEA INTO IMAGE,’ by E. Hornung, trans. E. Bredeck (New York, 1992) it is suggested that the symbol above is a picture of when the "One gave way to four pairs of primordial creatures, the Ogdoad, whose names indicate that they belong to the realm of the uncreated: primeval flood, hiddenness, endlessness, the undifferentiated ones. The sun emerges from the center of these beings, and as it rises for the first time it signals the beginning of the world."

The Hermopolis Ogdoad (Egyptian Khnum, Khnemu) was the Ram-headed god worshipped from the Archaic Period on, chiefly around Elephantine, the name Doudoun was associated also. Khnum means "eight" as in the modern place name of el-Ashmunein (Ashmun, Ashmunen).

The Ogdoad was a group of eight deities whom the priest at Hermopolis Magna, the principal cult of Thoth, associated with the creation myth. The Ogdoad comprised of four frog-gods and four snake-goddesses, paired and symbolizing aspects of the chaos before creation.


These eight deities brought into being the original Primeval Mound on which the egg of the sun-god was placed.

Khnum, (Khnemu) in Nubia there was a ram-god called Doudoun with whom Khnum may be associated. The Egyptians married Khnum to the goddess Heket, who was a frog.

The "Famine Stela" on the island of Sehel at the First Cataract from the second century B.C. tells how in the Third Dynasty, king Djoser assigned the Elephantine god Khnum a stretch of land to relieve a seven-year famine. The echo of the Joseph narrative in Genesis 41:29-30 is evident. Even Khnumhotep around 2000 B.C. had a visit from a Semitic party.

In Egypt, Khnum was god of fecundity and creation from the Cataract area. Originally a ram-god, his sanctuary was on Elephantine Island; a man with a ram’s head and wavy horns, that guarded the source of the Nile (life) and developed into a demiurge (creator) where he shaped the world on his potter’s wheel. Thoth (known as Hermes Trismegistus), the Egyptian god of the moon and of wisdom and learning, is shown marking his life span, while Khnum (Khnemu) is shaping his son on the potter’s wheel.

Anuket (Anqet, Anukis) with feather head-dress. The Egyptians tried to marry Khnum to the goddess Heket (Heqet), who was a frog, or a frog-headed woman, whose cult never got off the ground. Anuket was the divine wife of the god Khnum. She was associated with the Nile Cataracts, especially Aswan. Seheil and Elephantine Island were her favorites.

Thoth, (Tehuti, Thout, Djehuti, Zehuti) his name means "he of Djehut," which was a province in Lower Egypt. His cult centered at Hermopolis (Ashmunen). He was depicted as an ibis-headed man or as an ibis- or dog-headed ape; on his head he wore the combine lunar disc and crescent. His priest claim he created everything by sound of his voice alone. Thus the whole universe and its myriad dimensions of matter is a manifestation of infinite vibrations.

He was also called Hermes by the Greeks (Roman Mercury) and is the original of Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice greatest Hermes"), the mystical figure behind many arcane school of celestial philosophy.

Nun (Nu) Nux, who was the personification of the primeval waters from which everything arose, and from which the sun daily emerges, renewed and rejuvenated; hence Nun is "father of the gods." With his female counterpart, Naunet, he forms the first generation of the family group of eight gods (the Ogdoad of Hermopolis). Occasionally depicted in human form, he also assumes a frog’s head, drawing on his role as a fertility god. At the Oseiron at Abydos had a subterranean water channel to represent Nun. In Egypt he is the primal waters (annual inundation of the Nile) and source of life. As a bearded man waist high in water, from him sprang Ra. He is depicted holding aloft Manjet, the morning boat of the sun god Ra.

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