Page 377 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 44

Gods of the First Time

According to Heliopolitan theology, the nine original gods who appeared
in Egypt in the First Time were Ra, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis,
Nepthys and Set. The offspring of these deities included well-known
figures such as Horus and Anubis. In addition, other companies of gods
were recognized, notably at Memphis and Hermopolis, where there were
important and very ancient cults dedicated to Ptah and to Thoth. These
1
First Time deities were all in one sense or another gods of creation who
had given shape to chaos through their divine will. Out of that chaos they
formed and populated the sacred land of Egypt, wherein, for many
2
thousands of years, they ruled among men as divine pharaohs.
3
What was ‘chaos’?
The Heliopolitan priests who spoke to the Greek historian Diodorus
Siculus in the first century BC put forward the thought-provoking
suggestion that ‘chaos’ was a flood—identified by Diodorus with the
earth-destroying flood of Deucalion, the Greek Noah figure:
4
In general, they say that if in the flood which occurred in the time of Deucalion
most living things were destroyed, it is probable that the inhabitants of southern
Egypt survived rather than any others ... Or if, as some maintain, the destruction
of living things was complete and the earth then brought forth again new forms of
animals, nevertheless, even on such a supposition, the first genesis of living
things fittingly attaches to this country ...
5
Why should Egypt have been so blessed? Diodorus was told that it had
something to do with its geographical situation, with the great exposure
of its southern regions to the heat of the sun, and with the vastly
increased rainfall which the myths said the world had experienced in the
aftermath of the universal deluge: ‘For when the moisture from the
abundant rains which fell among other peoples was mingled with the
intense heat which prevails in Egypt itself ... the air became very well
tempered for the first generation of all living things ...’
6
Curiously enough, Egypt does enjoy a special geographical situation: as

1 Kingship and the Gods, pp. 181-2; The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, pp. 209, 264;
Egyptian Myths, pp. 18-22. See also T. G. H. James, An Introduction to Ancient Egypt,
British Museum Publications, London, 1979, p. 125ff.
2 Cyril Aldred, Akhenaton, Abacus, London, 1968, p. 25: ‘It was believed that the gods
had ruled in Egypt after first making it perfect.’
3 Kingship and the Gods, pp. 153-5; Egyptian Myths, pp. 18-22; Egyptian Mysteries, pp.
8-11; New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, pp. 10-28.
See Part IV.
4
5 Diodorus Siculus, volume I, p. 37.
6 Ibid.

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