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Didia (David Schmid)  · CC BY-SA 3.0

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Nine gods of Heliopolis

A family of creation told at one Egyptian city, and a Horus with seven recorded parents — what happens when several accounts share one name.

  • 7 steps
  • Deities, Places, Texts
  • A note at each step
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Not yet reviewed · written . The notes follow the records; no editor has signed them.

  1. PharaohCrab · CC0

    Step 1 of 7: Deity

    Ennead

    Group of nine deities in Egyptian mythology worshipped at Heliopolis

    The Ennead, the nine gods of the creation account tied to Heliopolis: Atum, his children Shu and Tefnut, theirs Geb and Nut, and the four born to them. It is one city’s scheme among several — Memphis and Hermopolis told creation differently — and the page presents it as that, not as the Egyptian pantheon.

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  1. Atum Family tree
  2. Nut Family tree
  3. Osiris Deity
  4. Horus Family tree
  5. Heliopolis On the atlas
  6. Book of the Dead Text
  1. FDRMRZUSA · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Step 2 of 7: Deity · Family tree

    Atum

    Ancient Egyptian creator deity

    Atum’s family as the records draw it. Above him are Nun and Naunet, the primeval waters as a pair — a pairing from the Hermopolitan scheme — so a creator who comes first in one account has parents in the drawing because another account sits on the same record. Every recorded parent is drawn; none is chosen.

    Open the family tree Continue to Nut
  2. A. Parrot · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Step 3 of 7: Deity · Family tree

    Nut

    Goddess of the sky in the Ennead of Egyptian mythology

    Nut, the sky, with Geb, the earth. Their children in the records are Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys — and Horus too, whom some texts count among them as an elder Horus. The canvas does not decide which Horus a line belongs to. It draws what the records hold, and labels the whole drawing as kinship in the accounts.

    Open the family tree Continue to Osiris
  3. Jeff Dahl · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Step 4 of 7: Deity

    Osiris

    God of the afterlife in Egyptian mythology

    Osiris, whose death and restoration is among the best-known Egyptian stories — told most fully as one continuous narrative by a Greek writer, Plutarch, long after the texts it draws on. Who told a story, and when, is part of its record: a late retelling in another language is evidence of how the story was told then.

    Open the profile Continue to Horus
  4. Jeff Dahl · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Step 5 of 7: Deity · Family tree

    Horus

    Egyptian sky deity

    Horus, with seven recorded parents: Osiris and Isis, Geb and Nut, Ra, and the ram god of Mendes with his consort. Several gods called Horus, from several cities and centuries, sit on one Wikidata item. The canvas draws all seven rather than quietly picking the famous pair.

    Open the family tree Continue to Heliopolis
  5. Didia (David Schmid) · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Step 6 of 7: Place · On the atlas

    Heliopolis

    City of ancient Egypt

    Heliopolis on the atlas, as a site. A pin marks where a cult centre was recorded. It is not the reach of a theology, and the atlas never shades a region because a creation story was told in one of its cities.

    See it on the atlas Continue to Book of the Dead
  6. n·e·r·g·a·l · Public domain

    Step 7 of 7: Text

    Book of the Dead

    Ancient Egyptian funerary text

    The Book of the Dead, one of the funerary texts in which these gods and their relationships appear. It is a family of texts rather than one book, copied and varied for individual burials — so a relationship “in the Book of the Dead” still needs a copy, a date and a spell before it is a citation.

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