The Ennead or Great Ennead was a group of nine

deities A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

Egyptian mythology Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world around them. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyp ...

worshipped at Heliopolis: the sun god

Atum Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Name Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to c ...

; his children Shu and

Tefnut Tefnut ( egy, ; cop, ⲧϥⲏⲛⲉ ) is a deity of moisture, moist air, dew and rain in Ancient Egyptian religion.The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the ...

; their children

Geb Geb was the Egyptian god of the earth and a mythological member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. He could also be considered a father of snakes. It was believed in ancient Egypt that Geb's laughter created earthquakes and that he allowed crops to ...

and

Nut Nut often refers to: * Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, or a collective noun for dry and edible fruits or seeds * Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt Nut or Nuts may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Co ...

; and their children

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...

Set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

, and Nephthys. The Ennead sometimes includes

Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the P ...

, the son of Osiris and Isis.

Status within ancient Egypt

The Great Ennead was only one of several such groupings of nine deities in ancient Egypt. Its claims to preeminence by its Heliopolitan priests were not respected throughout Egypt. As close as

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

(also within modern

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

), the priests of

Ptah Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the hu ...

celebrated him as superior to the Nine. In addition to Memphis having its own creation myth, the Ogdoad (of the city of

Hermopolis Hermopolis ( grc, Ἑρμούπολις ''Hermoúpolis'' "the City of Hermes", also ''Hermopolis Magna'', ''Hermoû pólis megálẽ'', egy, ḫmnw , Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu"; cop, Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ ''Shmun''; ar, الأشموني ...

) centered around physical creation and eight primordial gods was another creation story that existed at the same time.

Name in Egyptian, Greek, and Latin

The English name ''ennead'' is a borrowing via

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

name ''enneás'' (), meaning "the nine". The term was a

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...

of the Egyptian name, written ' and also meaning "the Nine". Its original pronunciation is uncertain, since hieroglyphs do not record vowels, but may have been in

Old Egyptian The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...

, in

Middle Egyptian The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...

, and in

Late Egyptian Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt around 1350 BC (the Amarna Period). Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian ...

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

s conventionally transcribe it as Pesedjet.

History

The ancient Egyptians created several enneads as their unification under brought numerous local cults into contact with one another. The ancient Egyptian mythology often had many different explanations for the same phenomenon. This concept is especially unique because no single story was more accurate than another, but rather the truth was a mix of them all. The

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterrane ...

of Dynasties V and VI mention the "Great Ennead", the "Lesser Ennead", the "Dual Ennead", and the "Seven Enneads". Some

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

s established enneads that incorporated themselves as gods. The most notable case is of whose temple at Redesiyah celebrated an ennead of six major gods and three deified forms of himself. The ''ennead'' mentioned in the

Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

, may reference the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance ...

. The most important was the "Great" or "Heliopolitan Ennead" of Awanu ( egy, I͗wnw), known under the

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...

and

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

as Heliopolis. It celebrated the family of the sun god

(sometimes referred to as

Atum-Re Atum (, Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic language, Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important ancient Egyptian deities, deity in Egyptian mythology. Name Atum's name is ...

) and thrived from the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

to the Ptolemaic period. Its development remains uncertain, although it appears to have first appeared when Ra's cult – supreme under – declined in importance under .

s have traditionally theorized that the Heliopolitan priesthood established it to establish the preeminence of Atum over the others, incorporating some major gods in lesser positions and omitting others entirely. The most prominent of such deities was

, god of vegetation and the

afterlife The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...

, who was incorporated into the ennead as Atum's great-grandson. However, in the 20th century, some Egyptologists question the whole scenario. After the Great Ennead was well established, the cult of Ra – identified with Atum – recovered much of its importance until superseded by the cult of

. The two were then combined as ''Ra-Horus of the Horizons''.

Mythology

According to the

creation story A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop ...

of the Heliopolitan priests, the world originally consisted of the primordial waters of precreation personified as

Nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

. From it arose a mound on the First Occasion. Upon the mound sat the self-begotten god

, who was equated with the sun god Ra. Atum evolved from Nun through self-creation. Atum either spat or masturbated, producing

air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...

personified as Shu and

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some commercial products. Moisture also refers to the amount of water vapo ...

personified as

. The siblings Shu and Tefnut mated to produce the earth personified as

and the nighttime sky personified as

. Geb and Nut were the parents of

and

and of

and Nephthys, who became respective couples in turn. Osiris and Isis represent fertility and order, while Set and Nephthys represent chaos to balance out Osiris and Isis.

, the son of Osiris and Isis, is often included in this creation tradition. Due to the duality of Ancient Egyptian myths, this is only one of many creation stories. The Egyptians believed no specific myth was more correct than the other, rather that some combination of these myths was correct. This creation story, the Heliopolitan tradition, is one of physiological creation. The other major creation traditions are the Memphite Theology and Hermopolitian Ogdoad creation myth.

Gallery

File:Atum.svg,

File:Shu with feather.svg, Shu File:Tefnut.png,

File:Geb.svg,

File:Nut.svg,

File:Standing Osiris edit1.svg,

File:Isis.svg,

File:Set.svg,

File:Nepthys.svg, Nephthys File:Horus standing.svg,

Variant hieroglyphs for the Ennead

:

: A dual Ennead (') was written R8A-R8A-R8A-R8A-R8A-R8A

References

Bibliography

* * {{Authority control Groups of Egyptian deities Egyptian mythology Creation myths Cultural lists ca:Llista de personatges de la mitologia egípcia#E