Hu ('), in
ancient Egypt, was the deification of the first word, the word of
creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
* Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
* Creationism, the belief tha ...
, that
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 ...
was said to have exclaimed upon
ejaculating or, alternatively, his circumcision, in his
masturbatory act of creating the
Ennead.
Hu is mentioned already in 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 ...
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 ...
(PT 251, PT 697) as companion of the deceased
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 ...
. Together with
Sia
Sia Kate Isobelle Furler ( ; born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 1997, when Crisp disbanded, she rel ...
, he was depicted in the retinue of
Thoth
Thoth (; from grc-koi, Θώθ ''Thṓth'', borrowed from cop, Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ ''Thōout'', Egyptian: ', the reflex of " eis like the Ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or ...
, with whom he was also occasionally identified.
In the
Middle Kingdom, all gods participated in Hu and Sia, and were associated with
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 ...
who created the universe by uttering the word of creation. Hu was depicted in human shape, as a falcon, or as a man with a ram's head.
In the
New Kingdom, both Hu and Sia together with
Heka,
Irer and
Sedjem were members of the fourteen creative powers of
Amun-Ra
Amun (; also ''Amon'', ''Ammon'', ''Amen''; egy, jmn, reconstructed as ( Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian) → (later Middle Egyptian) → ( Late Egyptian), cop, Ⲁⲙⲟⲩⲛ, Amoun) romanized: ʾmn) was a major ancient Egypt ...
. By the time of
Ptolemaic Egypt, Hu had merged with
Shu (air).
References
* Wilkinson, R. H., ''Die Welt der Götter im Alten Ägypten. Glaube - Macht - Mythologie'' , Stuttgart 2003
External links
* http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/hu.htm
Egyptian gods
Language and mysticism
Masturbation
Creation myths
Ptah
Falcon deities
{{Egyptian-myth-stub
ca:Llista de personatges de la mitologia egípcia#H