|
|||||
|
The
Egyptians wrote stories to try to explain their place in the world.
They lived close to the Nile River, so many of their stories relate
to the water and things being born there.
Their gods, of course, were closely tied to nature:
the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky and of course, the water!
There are two versions of the creation story, the Lower Kingdom
version and the Upper Kingdom version.
We will try to tell a short version of each so that you can see the
differences in the versions! Lower
Kingdom Version: When
the world first started only ocean was there. Ra came out of his egg when
it appeared on the surface of the water.
He was the first Egyptian god.
He had four children: Shu
and Geb (boys) and Tefnut and Nut (girls).
The girls (goddesses) became the atmosphere. The all stood on Geb, and he eventually became the ground
(earth). They held up[ Nut
who became the sky. Ra wa the
ruler of everything and everyone. The
Earth (Geb) and the atmosphere (Nut) joined as husband and wife and they
had to boys whom they named Set and Osiris.
They also had two girls named Isis and Nephthys.
When Ra died, Osiris became the chief God, and he was helped by his
wife, Isis (who was also his sister!).
Set was very jealous of his brother, Osiris, and so he killed him!
Isis had the help of Anubis, and they embalmed Osiris.
Because of this, Anubis became know as the god of Embalming.
Isis was so powerful that her charms brought Osiris back to life!
He then became King of the land of the dead. Isis and Osiris had one son, Horus, who decided to get
revenge for his father’s death. He
fought Set and defeated him so that he could be ruler of the earth.
Upper
Kingdom Version: In
the beginning there was only Nun, a huge ocean of Chaos that held all of
the pieces to nature. As in
the lower kingdom version, Ra was the original god of Egypt.
He had the following children: Shu - God of the Air and Tefnut - Goddess of Water. They eventually had children of their own. They were: Nut – Goddess of the Sky and Geb – God of the earth. According to this myth, all human men were created from the tears of Ra. These children were spoiled, and so a council decided to destroy them. To kill the children, Ra created the Goddess Sekhmet. Sekhmet was very good at her job, but she missed a few humans because Ra, who had created her, played a trick on her and got her to stop! Ra insisted that Geb and Nut not get married. They disobeyed him, and got married anyway. Nut became pregnant, and Ra, in his anger, ordered that she not be able to have her baby during any month of the year. Thoth, the God of Knowledge, tried to help Nut, and he gambled with the moon for extra light. Thoth won, and so 5 extra days were added to the Egyptian calendar. Now there were 365 days instead of 360! This meant that on the five extra days, Nut could have her babies. These were the names of the children she had: Osiris (symbol of good), Horus the Elder ,Set (symbol of evil), Isis and Nephthys.
|
|||||
Indian |
Egyptian |
Japanese |
Norse |
Sources |
Our Site |
