After reading a number of creation myths I chose one from the Egyptian civilization. I was interested in one of the early civilizations, in particular, just to know how they perceived the world around them, at that time. I took up the creation myth based on Atum the creator. In this story, like many other Egyptian creation myths, everything starts from the waters; everything starts from the observable.
The Egyptians believed that it all started with a swirling chaotic body of water, called Nu because it was a swirling chaotic body of water, the Nile that adorned their landscape; moreover it constantly flooded their land, uncontrollably so, and generated fear. As the myth goes from this body of water arose Atum, the Sun God of the city of Heliopolis. It is believed that he created himself using his thoughts and will. I found this aspect very interesting. To me, it appears that the Egyptians had great faith in the mind, or the notion of the “mind” as some internal energy. This concept excites me because very often I think of a change in the future from technology, which is still something tangible, to the mind, as a supreme energy with immense potential to create and transform drastically: IMAGINATION.
Atum when he came out, he found no place to stand so he created a hill. The hill, much like what was left when the waters of the Nile receded. Atum’s next act was to create other Gods, to find himself a mate, to cure his boredom. So he procreated with his shadow.
The Egyptians were fascinated by the shadow as another being, much like our young human imagination today. This brings back childhood memories of poems and essays written about the shadow as a companion. Just thinking about our observations of nature and comparing it to the Egyptians’ makes their entire creation myth quite believable at one level. There is a child like wonder that drives these myths. Having said that I have established that I am living in the 21st century, I am an adult and that those kinds of thoughts do not occur to me anymore as a basis of a strong belief because there is a more rational explanation to things around me.
As the rest of the myth continues, Atum was considered bi-sexual; he was often called “The Great He-She”. This made Atum the one and only creative force in the universe. Atum stayed in the waters to create his children. He gave birth to his son Shu and vomited his daughter Tefnut. Shu represented the air and Tefnut was the goddess of moisture. They continued the act of creation. After some time Shu and Tefnut got lost in the chaos of the waters and got separated from their father. The Egyptians believed that the force of the waters overpowered even their Gods. Atum had one eye that was removable, Udjat eye, which he removed and sent to look for his children. In due time Shu and Tefnut came back with the eye. Atum at that time cried tears of joy. As each tear fell, a human was created. Now Atum was ready to create the rest of the world. Humans were looked upon as a result of joy and happiness. Therein lay the importance which the Egyptians gave to human life.
It’s not hard to relate to such creation myths. Living in this day and age we too have creation myths like the Big Bang Theory. I insist on calling them myths as a term that our future generations might use to describe it. We too have tried to satisfy our curiosity to understand how things began by using our observations as basis and have gone ahead a few steps to use tools that we have invented to experiment with these elements coming closer to, what we consider at this point in time, to be proof.
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