ChieftheCef
Active Member
What is Nun, exactly? What does he correspond to in reality? Is he aether? How does Atum correspond? Does Nun generate or create Atum (generate meaning make with stuff, create meaning make stuff)
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Questions about Nun and Atum?
- Thread starter ChieftheCef
- Start date
Curious if anyone knows myself.
Nun is the primordial watery chaos before the beginning of anything.
Atum is the self-created Creator God. He may arise from Nun in some myths. Atum wills himself into existence and goes on to create other Gods.
This is the creation myth from Iunu, at any rate.
Atum is the self-created Creator God. He may arise from Nun in some myths. Atum wills himself into existence and goes on to create other Gods.
This is the creation myth from Iunu, at any rate.
VoidCat
Pronouns: he/they/it/neopronouns
That's how I understood it but wanted to make sure my facts were straight
It helps to know that the Egyptians believed in spontaneous generation. They thought dung beetles were spontaneously born from dungballs because that's what seems to happen. As Khepri the beetle God is associated with the sun, the Sun-God/s are seen to spontaneously generate themselves.
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ChieftheCef
Active Member
Do you know what's all interesting about that? Science essentially says all of the self created Nature (what one might coin Atum) comes from Nothing (another possible coinage, Nun). Truer than Jesus.
Is Amun related in any way to Atum that you know of?
Tamino
Active Member
If anyone wants to research this further, an important version of the Iunu creation myth is in the pyramid texts, spell 60.
For the relation between Nun and Atum, some very revealing passages can be found in a much younger text, the Book of the Celestial Cow. The creator Ra-Atum seeks council with the other gods, and he calls on Nun. There are pretty subtle points made here about Ra-Atum being self-centered, and having arisen "in" Nun, but bot being "made by" Nun... At the same time Ra-Atum respectfully calls nun his "father".
There's a great interlinear translation here, if you want to check for yourself:
For the relation between Nun and Atum, some very revealing passages can be found in a much younger text, the Book of the Celestial Cow. The creator Ra-Atum seeks council with the other gods, and he calls on Nun. There are pretty subtle points made here about Ra-Atum being self-centered, and having arisen "in" Nun, but bot being "made by" Nun... At the same time Ra-Atum respectfully calls nun his "father".
There's a great interlinear translation here, if you want to check for yourself:
Tamino
Active Member
Only circumstantially.
Amun is originally closer to Nun, like Nun He is part of the Ogdoad, the 8 primordial gods.
But after the 11th and 12th Dynasty expanded the cult center in Luxor and Amun got syncretized with Ra, that forged a connection... since Atum can be seen as a form of Ra and vice versa.
If you read the Cairo hymns to Amun of the 19th Dynasty, it feels like Atum, Path and Amun are fully integrated into this one great god of creation, the sun, and kingship.
ChieftheCef
Active Member
Haha I knew it! Didn't they have a geographical tie as well?
Maybe amum is a sort of conception or some other that relates to Atum. Maybe Amun is the conception of Atum where he is sort of humble until needed (or created, however you look at it personally). We may never know
Tamino
Active Member
No original tie, Atum is originally from the Kairo Area, Amun is from the south. But their stories got shared and mixed pretty early on.
As to what they mean and represent... just look at the names. Amun is "the Hidden One", His main original attribute is that He's invisible and mysterious. As Amun of Karnak, He's said to be a god of justice who will help the weak - because He's invisible he can go everywhere and see everything and no injustice can be hidden from Him.
Atum, Egyptian Tm, has the double aspect of "all" and "nothing" in the etymology of his name. Tem means "to collect, to add up, to complete" ... But the same word can also be used as a negation to state that something does not exist.
For me, Atum is very much confined to His role as a creator - He exists in the very beginning, when the world is created, and in the very end, after the world ceases to exist.
ChieftheCef
Active Member
That was the reply I was looking for. Have a great day!
Tamino
Active Member
Always happy to help out with obscure Egyptian loreThat was the reply I was looking for. Have a great day!