At different times and in different locations, the Egyptians had several creation myths and different deities performing similar roles. They often had thematic similarities despite changes in the cast of characters and shuffling of stories and these thematic similarities across time and place go beyond ancient Egypt. The influence of the Egyptians reached the Greeks and Romans and thereby continued to influence Western thought up to the current day. Understanding the Mythology of ancient Egypt helps us understand everything since.
The Ogdoad (~3000BC) is an early creation myth out of the Lower Kingdom city of Hermopolis. As is often the case in Egyptology, "Ogdoad" is a Greek word, meaning "eight". The eight gods of the Ogdoad were four male-female pairs that preceded existence, and each pair represented one of the Elements: the primeval waters (chaos), infinity, darkness and the hidden aspects of divinity. All of the gods of the Ogdoad were aquatic creatures because before Creation there were only the primeval waters. The females were serpent-headed and the males were frog-headed. Of particular note was the frog-headed male god named Kek, which has become a controversial internet meme:
When the males and the femailes of the Ogdoad came together in the dark but silentlly motionless waters of chaos, a primeval mound erupted out of the sea. There are different versions of what appeared on the mound but all versions converge on the first sunrise climbing out of this new dynamism to begin the cycle of sunrises and sunsets. The concept of Chaos presented in the Ogdoad is that of a pregnant but formless infinitude, coupled with imagery of animals that link the dark waters to the light of land. Only when the male and the female come together as a this-that dichotomy does it become possible for the comprehensible to arise out of the formless.
The Ennead myth came out the Upper Kingdom city of Heliopolis a few hundred years after the Ogdoad. Unlike the gods of the Ogdoad, who arose out of non-existence to cause Creation, the gods of the Ennead follow after Creation is brought about by one god: Atum. The word "Ennead" comes to us from the Greek interpretation of "the Nine," and while nine gods have often been associated with the Ennead, the number nine had a hidden meaning.
In Egyptian Hieroglyphics the number three was associated with being plural, due to three dashes used after a word to mark it as plural:
Since nine is three times three it is a plurality of plurals and therefore represents totality, completion or wholeness in ancient Egyptian culture. While a literal understanding of the Ennead myth evokes the simple image of nine initial gods, the figurative meaning of that number is far deeper. This kind of exoteric/esoteric interplay between The One/The Many is common in myth and religion; Christianity has the Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and Chinese Taoism uses the phrase "The Ten Thousand Things" as a shorthand for the Tao creating the one, the one creating the two and so on. The concept of the One or the Initial as generating the universe by splitting itself into all things is present in many cultures, and in reverse it implies all things are part of god.
Like the Ogdoad, the Ennead begins in a cosmic ocean of infinite form but no dynamic action. Ancient Egyptian texts referred to this as the time before two things had developed, a time before the concept of opposites existed. Out of this nothingness, a pyramid-like mound rose above the waters and the god Atum dwelled within it. Atum was said to have existed in the limitless potentials of the waters and only came out once his "heart became effective" and he was able to think and feel. The pyramid that he emerged from was called the Benben stone, and set the archetype for the Egyptians. The pyramids of the Egyptians were built with polished or gold-plated capstones that recalled the birth of Atum, the first being on Earth.
Upon emergence, Atum gave either a great shout or a great breath and brought the Sun into existence. He was lonely and the story of how he created other beings varies. In the most salacious version, Atum inseminates himself with his own seed. In the slightly less explicit versions he breathes, speaks or sneezes his children into existence. Like you and me, the ancient Egyptians were understood to be created using the old-fashioned method and the hoi polloi may have required a more physical explanation now and then. But the concepts of breathing spirit into life or using specific words to create incantations had an equally generative power in Egypt, and these concepts endured in both Greek and Christian beliefs. Sometimes the aethereal generative power explains more than biological generative power.
Sometimes.
To Be Continued....up next: Shu and Tefnut.
The astute reader will notice that Greek words are not only used for numbers but for places as well. Heliopolis and Hermopolis sound like they could be suburbs of Athens and not cities on the Nile! Egypt has faced major changes after being conquered by different cultures. Before the Arab invasion that resulted in the Arabic-speaking Egypt as we know it today, the area was conquered by Alexander the Great who brought Greek administrators and the Greek language. Before that the Egyptians were neither Arab nor Greek and they used their own unique language. That language was lost to history after centuries of Greek/Byzantine and then Arab rule, until the Rosetta Stone was interpreted in the 1800s.
footnotes
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Egyptian Mythology: Geraldine Pinch
https://jaauth.journals.ekb.eg/article_204202_7b316215f426e38d22ae440c3f9ba0d8.pdf
https://geocities.restorativland.org/Athens/Academy/1326/ontology.html
https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/infinite-ogdoad-creation-pantheon-ancient-egypt-and-predecessor-gods-old-020447
https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ogdoad/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad_(Egyptian)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benben
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_creation_myths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneuma
https://pesedjet.substack.com/p/the-nature-of-nine-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ocean