elephantine

The first of six cataracts or shallows of the Nile is at Aswan and Elephantine Island is close by.

Elephantine island is perfectly located to allow tribes to build barriers of defense against people or animals. It has invited such people since the earliest of times. The ancient Egyptians called this large island Abu or Yabu. The Greeks called it Elephant Island (elephantine).

Khnum was the patron god of the island. Khnum, aka., Khnemu, Chnum, etal., had at least one temple built in his honour on Elephantine Island. Cults adopted a creation myth where Khnum was a ram headed potter, who moulded species on his divine potter's wheel.

John Anthony West explains it this way.

Khnum was the Great Artificer, carrying out the plans of Ptah, the Architect, which were in turn the commands of Re, as uttered by Thoth. By a chain of associations, then Khnum, was an aspect of Re. He is called Supreme One, the One Great God, etc...

West continues to explain the Khnum trinity that exists between Neith, and Satet. Satet is a form of Isis and associated to the star Sirius. In later myths Neith is substituted for Esna, and Satet is substituted for the lion-headed Menhyet.

Sirius is the dog star and the brightest star in the night sky. It goes on to play a big role in the Giza pyramids with the Isis chamber.

Elephantine Island holds clues from as early as the 3rd and 4th dynasties about the offerings made to the Khnum triad. The earliest inhabitants would have been of Nubian decent and most likely influenced by the bird clans who came from the south more than the serpent or lizard lower nile clans who'd moved closer to the Mediterranean. Just speculation.....

eight Ogdoad deity

Who were the eight gods of the Ogdoad ?

The major cult center of the eight Ogdoad deity was Hermopolis. However a popular website called tourEgypt states Heliopolis as the primary place of worship. In Egyptian myths by Hart it states that the Ogdoad predates the Ennead of Heliopolis. On nemo.com they claim that the Ogdoad were eight reptiles.

Hermopolis was named by the Greeks as the city of Hermes and Hermes was the messenger of the Gods and a guide to the Underworld. The Greeks don't form a culture for thousands of years after the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties however.

The Egyptian creation myth of Ogdoad emphasizes that eight primeval forces or primordial essences or states of chaos were the elements of life which preceded all other life in Egypt and on earth.

So who were the formulators of the Hermopolitan cosmogeny ?

Here's how Hart describes it.

The number of either gods or goddesses in the Hermopolitan myth is far from fortuitous....

The eight of Hermopolis were(structured as four couples) were personified entities within the primeval matter, with the gods envisaged as frogs, and the goddesses as snakes.......

The names of these eight deities survive, but it is difficult in some cases to conjure the exact mental image which ancient Egyptians would have seen.

One frog god and one snake goddess unite in a concept of male/female principles.

The four gods of the Ogdoad are Nu, Heb, Kek, Amun.
The four goddesses of the Ogdoad are Naunet, Haubet, Kauket, Amaunet.

Nu and Naunet unite in primordial waters, Heb and Haubet unite in kinetic flood forces, Kek and Kauket form in darkness, and Amun and Amaunet form in concealed dynamism. All this cosmic energy is dividing the singularity into duality in bursts of energy that occur before the rising of the first sun or the time before the genesis of the solar system. Thus the chaos gods or the eight Ogdoad deity create the Isle of Flame or the fire in the sky. In the Ogdoad myth therefore
Atum is created after the chaos gods explosive dynamo of duality. Like Hart states, they are the father's and mother's of Atum.

The Ogdoad gods were worshipped during the Old Kingdom. During this 550 year period their were cults within united Egypt who worshipped Hathor and Ra, while others moved towards Hathor and Thoth. By 2400 BC when the Old Kingdom is failing as a united kingdom under one Pharoah the emergence of a nine Ennead deity belief is gaining momentum. The Ennead cults are focused in Heliopolis in Lower Egypt, near present day Cairo.

Goddess of the Red Crown

Neith was the goddess of the red crown of lower Egypt and is a predynastic Egypt mythological figure.

She was the patron of weaving, hunting, and of war.

Lower Egypt is that part of Egypt that begins at the Aswan cataract and runs to the shores of the Mediterranean sea.

Kurt Sethe, a German philologist, argues that Neith could be the Canaanites war goddess Anath who was a bloodthirsty and terrifying god figure of war.

The cults to the goddess of the red crown show themselves in early texts of Abydos, according to The Great goddessses of Ancient Egypt by Lesko, but the real influence of Neith is seen at Sais which is much closer to the Mediterranean and the territory where Alexander the Great and the Ptolemy Pharoah chose to rule Egypt from. The lady of Sais was the creator of all.

The earliest images of the goddess of the red crown, again according to the same source, are found at the time of the reigns of Djet and Nynetjer during the Archaic Period. Reverence to the goddess of the delta was also respected at Memphis where an temple of Neith was situated just outside of the white walls.

Those royals who honoured the goddess of the delta or the predynastic goddess of the red crown often took on her name. ie. Meryneith.

The Greek version of Neith might be the strong and independent Athena. Neith in early Egypt is almost as powerful as the king himself.

The Berber culture Africans might have equated Tanit to Neith, where Ta is land and Nit is Neith.

The Phoenician equivalent was likely Ishtarte or Ishtar ( would be interesting this one to see any correlations to the ished tree and Apophis relation). The Ogdoad myths have her as the mother of Ra and of Apep

Neith, the goddess of the red crown, was also Nit, Net, Neit...

From the Pyramid Texts

" My mother is Isis

My nurse is Nephtys

Neith is behind me

Selket is before me"

The image of Neith is often one of a women holding a bow and arrow and a weaver's shuttle above her head. Other images have the goddess of the red crown pictured as a lioness, serpent (snake, lizard), or cow.

Apep

Apep is an ancient Egyptian deity, not mentioned in Egypt until the Middle Kingdom funerary texts. Apep is sometimes associated the goddess Neith and is the arch enemy of Ra. Like Cronos of the Greek myths who swallows up his offsprings, Apep is said to attempt to destroy Ra or slow the advances of Ra by subduing his creation. Apep is always trying to create trouble for Ra. While many Egyptian deities were beings that could exist outside of the godly worlds, Apep was not and whoever became swallowed up by Apep was doomed to a nonexistent state of being with no natural characteristics and never again being able to exist in the natural world or in the heavens.

Apep could only be a bad thing for sun worshipping mortal humans who looked to the Horus god or the Amun Ra god who was represented by the highest of high priests; the pharoah king.

The king who sat on the throne of the great white walled city (Memphis) became the god man who could protect the cult members from arm at the way of the giant snake or serpent demon who plied his magic from the the realm of darkness.

Apep, the one who spits venomous chants of eternal prison poison.

Anubis and the Ankh

Anubis and the Ankh are found in old Kingdom Egyptian writings.

Anubis to the the Greeks is Inpu. The jackal headed deity of the old kingdom (c. 3100 BC ) is associated to burial ceremonies and mummification rites. Somehow his magical essence summons some spirit of the afterlife.

The old kingdom cult to lord Anubis is moved over to Osiris in the Middle Kingdom Egypt dynasties.

Anubis symbols often depict the jackal head in the color black but by some accounts this is a reference to the black earth found in Nile Valley. It might also be a reference to the rotting dark flesh of the dead.

However arguments have it that the dark headed figure symbolizes the original Kemet Africans who inhabit the Upper Nile area.

Anubis is also often shown carrying an Ankh symbol by the eye.

The eye of what ??????

This could be answered as the Eye of Ra but that would only be speculation.

Anubis was the son of Osiris and Nephtys....read on.