Subject: Ancient understanding of the Creation.
Modern Cosmology states our Solar System to be 4.6 bill years old and the
Milky Way galaxy to be 12.6 bill years old. Obviously, our Solar System is not the first to be formed in the Milky Way galaxy. This is important to focus on in order to understand the mythical description.
The scholarly and popular interpretation of the following creation story has it´s focus on the Sun and a god which is named Re or Ra, who is the first entity be created in the Egyptian creation story. This deity is also closely and complexly connected to the Milky Way goddess Hathor.
The BIG question is then whether Re/Ra represent the Sun at daytime or another celestial light at nighttime. One cannot observe BOTH objects at the same time, so either this solar Re/Ra idea is false, or Re/Ra points toward another another "kind of Light".
Star Atlas. Southern Hemisphere. The galactic center is located in the middle of the thick structure to the left. (The original color is faint grey/white)
Egyptian Goddess Hathor/Nut
The Ogdoad Creation Myth - Ogdoad - (Three Versions)
In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad are the eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis. The gods of the Ogdoad were mostly seen as humans with their animals' heads, or just depicted as snakes and frogs. They were arranged in four male-female pairs, with the males associated with frogs, and the females with snakes. The Egyptians believed that
#1) before the world was formed, there was a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos. In this chaos lived the Ogdoad of Khmunu (Hermopolis), four frog gods and four snake goddesses of chaos.
These deities were Nun and Naunet (water), Amun and Amaunet (invisibility), Heh and Hauhet (infinity) and Kek and Kauket (darkness).
The chaos existed without the light, and thus Kek and Kauket came to represent this darkness. They also symbolized obscurity, the kind of obscurity that went with darkness, and night.
The Ogdoad were the original great gods of Iunu (On, Heliopolis) where they were thought to have helped with creation, then died and retired to the land of the dead where
#2) they continued to make the Nile flow and the sun rise every day.
My comments:
1: This is a common introduction in many cultural stories of creation.
2: The Nile here is NOT the geographical Nile, but the mythical celestial "Heavenly River". the Milky Way.
Creation Myth
Together the four concepts represent the primal fundamental state of the beginning,
#1) they are what always was. In the myth, however,
#2) their interaction ultimately proved to be unbalanced, resulting in
#3) the arising of a new entity. When the entity opened,
#4) it revealed Ra, the fiery sun, inside. After a long interval of rest,
#5) Ra, together with the other gods, created all other things. There are two main variations on the nature of the entity containing Ra.
My comments:
1: This is a statement of an eternal World.
2: This is just a description of what happens when the chaotic "Primordial Waters". i.e. the cosmic clouds of gas and dust, are set in motion.
3: This entity represents the modern term of the galactic hole, around which everything orbits.
4: Re/Ra is the first "Fiery Light to be created.
5: Re/Ra, as the Sun, have of course not created "all other things" together with "the other gods".
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Egg Variant
#1) The original version of the myth has the entity arising from the (primordial) waters after the interaction as a mound of dirt, the Milky Way, which was deified as Hathor.
In the myth an egg was laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. The egg contained
Ra. In the original version of this variant, the egg is laid by a cosmic goose
#2) (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of
Thoth, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth, and laid by an Ibis, the bird with which he was associated.
My comments:
1: This "first mound of dirt" is also a common description in several myths of creation. In the Biblical example, this is just called "earth", meaning "soil" (which has confused scholars to think of a "two times created Earth in the biblical story.) In this creation variant, the first entity is located on the Milky Way central mound, where the very contours of the Milky Way is represented by goddess Hathor as illustrated above.
2:The bird and goose is just an earlier variant of imaging the Milky Way contours and the Egg is just a nice way to illustrate the (cyclic) creation in the Milky Way.
In this variant it is without any doubts that Re/Ra is the first Light to be created in the Milky Way center with the direct connection to the Milky Way goddess Hathor.
All in all, this Egyptian creation story deals with the creation/formation of the Milky Way galaxy and all what´s known in the ancient world perception.
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Lotus Variant
Later, when Atum had become assimilated into Ra as Atum-Ra, the belief that Atum
#1) emerged from a (blue) lotus bud, in the Ennead cosmogeny, was adopted and attached to Ra. The lotus was said to have arisen from the waters after the explosive interaction as a bud, which floated on the surface, and slowly opened its petals to reveal the beetle, Khepri, inside.
#2) Khepri, an aspect of Ra representing the rising sun, immediately turns into a weeping boy - Nefertum (young Atum), whose tears form the creatures of the earth.
My comment:
1: This is also a common cultural/mythical description of the
unfolding of the creation
2: Anyone who are familiar with the Egyptian symbolism, knows that Khepri is a symbol of the cyclical creation itself and not representing the Sun - even that one can make a somewhat similar allegory with the Sun. But this creation story deals with the central part of the Milky Way and NOT with the Sun.
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My conclusions:
Re/Ra don´t represent the Sun but the lighter and central part of the Milky Way. This false interpretation have been repeated for centuries in books and this false information is also repeated today in diverse encyclopedia.
The Re/Ra = Sun interpretation is nonsense in all accounts since the Sun/Solar System isn´t the first to be created in the center in these variants of creation stories, which obviously deals with the Milky Way.
Re/Ra = Popularly assumed to represent the Sun, is simply fake news. Re/Ra = The central lighter part of the Milky Way
