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Egyptian mythology: The Shabaka Stone - Memphite mythology
 
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Sekhmet and Ptah
Osiris
Anubis
Horus
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Egyptian Mythology
by Charles H. Long
From time immemorial Egypt
has been known as the country of two lands: The desertlike
Upper Egypt, or the Red
Land, and Lower Egypt,
or the Black Land,
where the soil is fertile. Even today 99 percent of the Egyptian population live in the Black
Land. The significance of this
duality is more than a geographical and demographic fact; it is a basic
element in the very beginnings of the culture of the ancient Egyptians and
finds significant expression in their religion and myths.
Ancient Egyptian culture, myth, and religion might be
characterized as a duality with rhythmic structures contained within a static
unity. Unlike Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt
as a civilization did not develop several powerful city-states along two
rivers. Egypt
had one river of significance, the Nile, and smaller
villages grew up alongside its banks. Each of these village communities
manifested a mythology, but these mythologies did not create tensions among
the communities. In ancient Egypt
the tendency was toward unity and stasis, not confrontation and tension. A
text that exemplifies this attitude, while taking into account older
historical and local traditions, is the theology of Memphis,
recorded on the Shabaka Stone. The Memphite theology presents the
teachings of Menes, who established (c.3000 BC) a
new capital at Memphis. In this
theology all local and former mythological traditions are brought to their
theological goal in the god Ptah. The text is a cosmology that describes the
creation of the world and the unity of the land
of Egypt as a process in the
eternal ordering of the world. Ptah creates
everything from notions that were in his heart and are then pronounced by his
tongue. All things--the universe, living beings, justice, beauty, and so
on--are created in this manner. The gods are also created in this way; coming
forth first as concepts of Ptah's mind, they enter
into the material forms of the world--stone, metal, wood--that have equally
been created out of Ptah.
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From the Shabaka Stone
[King of Upper and Lower Egypt] is this Ptah, who
is called the great name: [Ta-te]nen [South-of-his-Wall, Lord of eternity] [the joiner] of
Upper and Lower Egypt is he, this uniter who arose
as king of Upper Egypt and arose as king of Lower Egypt.
"Self-begotten," so says Atum: "who
created the Nine Gods."
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The Memphite theology takes over older local notions of
creation, such as that of Hermopolis, which
describes creation proceeding from eight primordial beings of chaos who inhabited the primeval slime. The four males are
toads, and the four females snakes, forming the pairs of Nun and Naunet (primordial matter and primordial space); Kuk and Kauket (the illimitable
and the boundless); Huh and Hauhet (darkness and
obscurity); Amon and Amaunet
(hidden and concealed ones). These eight bring forth the sun, and in the
Memphite theology they are said to come forth from Ptah
himself.
Another part of the Memphite mythology takes up myths from
the Old Kingdom about the gods Horus
and Seth. These two deities contend for authority over Egypt;
another deity, Geb, the earth-god, acts as mediator.
Geb first partitions the country between the two,
then, changing his mind, gives the entire country to Horus.
In the Memphite theology, the pharaoh Menes is
identified with Horus. That theology also makes Geb homologous to Ptah, but in
another mythological context Geb, the power in the
earth, is supreme. He is the primeval hillock that is the symbol of the first
creation. For the Egyptians the earth deity is male rather than female.
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[Geb,
lord of the gods, commanded] that the Nine Gods gather to him. He judged
between Horus and Seth; he ended their quarrel. He
made Seth the king of Upper
Egypt in the land of Upper Egypt, up to the place in which he was born, which is Su.
And Geb made Horus King
of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt, up to the place in which his father was drowned
which is "Division-of-the-Two-Lands." Thus Horus
stood over one region, and Seth stood over one region. They made peace over
the Two Lands at Ayan. That was the division of the
Two Lands. ... Then it seemed wrong to Geb that the
portion of Horus was like the portion of Seth. So Geb gave Horus his inheritance,
for he is the son of his firstborn son.
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In the Old Kingdom mythology the
sun Atum
(or Aten) often appears as the first creator.
He makes Shu and Tefnut
(air and moisture) out of himself, and they in turn produce Geb and Nut (earth and sky). The children of the latter
couple are Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nepthys. Thus the first four deities establish the
cosmos, and the later four are mediators between humans and the cosmos. Osiris is the symbol of the dead king, who is succeeded
in the form of Horus, the living ruler. Isis
is the consort of Osiris, and after his murder by
Seth, she reconstitutes his body and thus achieves for him eternal life; her
ally in this role is Nepthys, the consort of Seth. Horus, the son of Osiris and
Isis, ultimately vanquishes Seth, a symbol of antistructure
or antiorder. Seth is related to the desert
of Upper Egypt. As a deity of
clouds, he opposed Atum, the sun.
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His (Ptah's)
Ennead is before him as teeth and lips. They are the semen and the hands of Atum. For the Ennead of Atum
came into being through his semen and his fingers. But the Ennead is the
teeth and the lips in this mouth which pronounced the name of every thing,
from which Shu and Tefnut
came forth, and which gave birth to the Ennead.
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Although kingship appears as the pivot around which
Egyptian mythology revolves, the key mythological themes are creation,
procreation, revival, and the unity of the two lands. The temporal pharaoh
was only a symbol of these orders. The power behind them is expressed in the
sun, in the earth, and in animals, especially cattle. The language and
symbols of power may at any time be translated from one into another--for
example, the sun might be described in the symbolism of cattle or the earth
in the symbolism of the sun. In the theology of the New Kingdom,
the supreme god was Amon-Re, an identification of
the Theban (and Hermopolitan) creator-god Amon with the sun-god Ra (successor to Atum).
From an
article by Charles H.Long
in The Software Toolworks Multimedia
Encyclopedia, Entry Mythology, © Grolier, Inc.
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He (Ptah)
gave birth to the gods, He made the towns, He established the nomes, He placed the gods in their shrines, He settled
their offerings, He established their shrines, He
made their bodies according to their wishes. Thus the gods entered into their
bodies, Of every wood, every stone, every clay,
Every thing that grows upon him In which they came to be. Thus were gathered
to him all the gods and their Kas, Content, united
with the Lord of the Two Lands.
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