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    Otiose Deities and the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon

    Author(s): Susan Tower HollisSource: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 35 (1998), pp. 61-72Published by: American Research Center in EgyptStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000461

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    Otiose Deities and the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon*Susan Tower Hollis

    The genesis of this discussion lies initially ina statement made by Frank Moore Cross inwhich he referred to the Ogdoad as "otiose dei-ties" in a discussion of ancient Near Easterntheogonies and cosmogonies. In time he pub-lished an article entitled "The 'Olden Gods' inAncient Near Eastern CreationMyths"n whichhe identified the deities of the Ogdoad as"oldengods"and "dead."1 urthercontributingto the discussion is the querymade byan anony-mous reviewer of one of my articles asking ifNut might be characterized as an otiose deity,"i.e.,withdrawn nd hence currently nactive, . .[questioning]how . . . the layeringof 'active'and'retired'gods appl[ies] to Egyptiancosmogony."2The concept of the otiose deity to whichbothCross and the evaluator referred appears ex-plicitly in at least two of Mircea Eliade'sworks,Patterns n ComparativeReligion and Mythand Re-ality.4He defines the otiose deity, technicallythedeusotiosus, s a supreme being who takesvirtu-allyno activepartin a people's religious life anddoes not figure in cult, "havingwithdrawn rommankind (sic)."5Accordingto Eliade'sscenario,this supreme being created the world and hu-manity but "soon abandoned his (sic) creation

    and withdrew nto the sky,"hus removinghim-self to a distance and disappearingfrom cult,finally being forgotten.6 Even when the god'sname is recalled, he no longer plays an activerole in religious life. Thus the deity essentiallydies,7 though Eliade is quick to note that thesedeities are rememberedin timesof dire trouble,atwhich time theyreturn to theirpeople.8While occasionally referring to myths fromancient literate cultures, the largest proportionof Eliade's discussion relates to materials frommore recent preliterate cultures described innumerous books and articles written over thepast century.Forinstance, he refers to mythsofpeoples like the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego,the Yoruba of WestAfrica, the Semang on theMalaccapeninsula, and the Hereros of South-WestAfrica. Other mythswith a similarpatterninclude those of the Hottentot, Yao,and Krachi,each of which details the distancingof the dei-ties from humans.9 For example, a Hottentotnarrative ells of a series of battles between twochiefs, one of whom eventuallywins and goesto live in the beautiful heaven, while the de-feated being is relegatedto the darkheaven, theland of the dead. A mythof the Yao of Mozam-bique explains the distancing of the deities asthe result of humans' cruelty to the beings ofthe environment, while among the Krachi ofTogo, the retreat of the god Wulbarito the skycame about because of disrespectful mistreat-ment by humans.

    Accordingto Eliade,the characteristicpatternof a deusotiosus onsists of the following:

    * Earlierversions of this work were presentedat the an-nual meetingsof the AmericanResearchCenterin Egypt nSeattle in 1992 and the Society of Biblical LiteratureinPhiladelphia n 1995. Mythanksto JackFoster for encour-agingme to get this material nto print.1 F. M. Cross,The 'Olden Gods' in Ancient Near EasternCreationMyths.MagnaliaDei: TheMightyActsof God.Essaysin theBibleandArchaeologyn Memory f G.ErnestWright,d.F. M. Cross,J. Patrick,D. Miller, and W. E. Lemke. NewYork:Doubleday (1976), 331.2 Reader, A., Evaluation of Feminist Theory and theStudyof Folklore,Universityof Illinois Press(1991).M. Eliade, Patterns n Comparativeeligion.New York:New AmericanLibrary 1974).4 M.Eliade,MythandReality.New York:Harper(1963).5 M.Eliade,MythandReality,5.

    6 M.Eliade,MythandReality, 5.7 M.Eliade,MythandReality, 09.8 M.Eliade,Patternsn Comparativeeligion, 4-50.9 B. Sproul, PrimalMyths:Creatinghe World.New York:Harper&Row(1979), 34, 36, 75.61

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    62 JARCEXXXV (1998)1. God created the World and man, thenwithdrew o the Sky;2. his withdrawalwas sometimesaccompaniedby a breakin communicationsbetween Sky

    and Earth,or in a greatincreasein the dis-tance between them . . . ; [and]3. the place of this more or lessforgotten deusotiosuswas taken byvariousdivinities,all ofwhom are closer to man and help him orpersecute him in a more direct and con-stantway.10When the deusotiosus dies"o humanity,a gapresults "that is quickly filled by other religiousFigures . ."n Thus one sees the emergence oftranscendent, passive sky beings along with therise of "moredynamic,activeand easilyaccessi-

    ble forms."According to Eliade's thinking, thischange representsa "'progressive escent of thesacred into the concrete',"by which he meansthat the solid materials of humanity's everydaylife increasinglycarryvalues of the sacred.12In contemplating Eliade's ideas, many Egyp-tologistswillthinkquicklyof the narrativeknownas "The Destruction of Mankind" romthe Bookof the HeavenlyCow.13Found in royaltombs ofthe New Kingdom,the narrativerelatesthe ulti-mate retirementor retreatof Re to the back ofthe heavenly cow. As the story opens, the textdescribeshim as having "becomeold, his bonesbeing of silver,his flesh gold, and his hair truelapis lazuli."14This description presents Re not

    merely as covered with precious metals such asmight be found on a cult statue but also showsa "completeossification of the aged deity."15Atissue in the narrative s a rebellion of humanityagainstRe.16The latter,aftertakingcounselwithNun and the company of gods, sends his eye,Hathor, to destroythe rebels. Re interruptshervery successfulmission, however,by getting herdrunk on beer in order to save the remaininghumans. The text continues:

    Then said the majestyof Re, "Astrulyas I live,my heart is much too weary to be with them(men). I want to kill them without exception,and considerable should be the reach of mypower."But the gods in his followingsaid,"Donot revert to your weariness. You have powerover whatyouwill."But the majestyof thisgodsaid to the majestyof Nun, "Myimbs are slackas in primaltimes.I can no longer defend my-self (?) againstanother who attacksme."17

    Then Nun tells Nut to place Re on her back.This she does, firstbecoming the heavenlycowand later the heavens. ThusRe, the self-created,hpr ds.f (Pyr. 1587b), distances himself fromhumanity;he becomes an "oldengod,"but he isone who nonetheless receives cult and worship,unlike those to whichEliaderefers.Cross notes a similar situation in relation tothe Ogdoad as he discusses olden gods in theancient Near East,stating that the cult given tothe eight as MedinetHabu is "theexception thatprovesthe rule" that olden gods "ordinarily adno temples or cults."18Although the meaningof an "exceptionthat proves the rule" may beproblematic, a close look at ancient Egyptian

    10M.Eliade,MythandReality,8.11M.Eliade,MythandReality,9.u M. Eliade,Patternsn Comparativeeligion, 2. Both ob-servationsbeg the question of transcendence and imma-nence,anongoing question n Egyptology: .Morenz, 1974),Die Heraufkunftdes transzendentenGottes n Agypten.Reli-gionund GeschichteesalienAgypten.. Blumenthaland S. Her-mann.Koln &Wien,BohlauVerlag: 7-119. E.Hornung,DerdgyptischeMythosvon der Himmelskuh.Eine Atiologiedes Unvoll-kommenen.reiburg,Schweiz&:Gottingen,Universitatsverlag;Vandenhoeck8cRuprecht(1982), R. B. Finnestad,EgyptianThoughtAboutLife as a Problemof Translation.TheReligionof the AncientEgyptians: CognitiveStructureand Popular Expres-sion 1989),ed. G.Englund,Uppsala,ActaUniversitatisUpsa-liensis.20:29-40, as well as one about which comesfirst,theabstract r the concrete.13E. Hornung,Derdgypthische ythos on derHimmelskuh;E. Brunner-Traut,Altdgyptischedrchen; iisseldorf & Koln:EugenDiederichsVerlag(1997), 101-6 and 299-301.E. Hornung,Derdgypthische ythos on derHimmelskuh,1, 37, and 51, nn. 5 and 6; E. Brunner-Traut,AltdgypthischeMdrchen,01.

    15E. Hornung, ConceptionsfGodn AncientEgypt. thaca,NY,CornellUniversityPress(1982), 154.16The same idea appears n slightlydifferent form else-where, for instance at Esna. Sauneron, Les FetesreligieusesdEsna aux derniers ieclesdepaganisme.Esna Caire, InstitutFrancaisd'ArcheologieOrientale du Caire (1962), 323-30,wherehumans,perceiving he sun god aging,decided to re-volt againsthis order. Depending on the particularnarra-tive, Re, assistedin some way by another deity or deities,overcame the revolt. The intense fatigue which resulted,however, ed him to retire to the distant skyand leave therulershipof the landto his grandsonGeb.17E. Hornung,Derdgyptische ythos on derHimmelskuh,10, 40, and 59, n. 75; E. Brunner-Traut,AltdgypthischeMdrchen,04.18F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'332 and 337,n. 18.

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    OTIOSE DEITIESAND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANPANTHEON 63myths in relation to Cross's discussion and Eli-ade's thoughts suggests that Egyptianconceptsabout its origins and creation differ quite sig-nificantlyfrom those of the rest of the ancientNear East,and perhaps in this case there is norule applicable.In his discussion, Cross draws on writtenmaterials, some originally derived from oraltradition, from the ancient Near Eastern andClassical worlds Hittite-Hurrian, Akkadian,Egyptian,Canaanite,and Phoenician, as well asGreek. In fact, the Hittite-Hurrian,the Akka-dian, and the Egyptianeven used similar termi-nology to designate the older deities: siuneskaruilesn Hittite, ildnu sa ddruti r ildnu sa ddrd-timin Akkadian,and ntrwpjwtyw n Egyptian,each translated as "primevalgods"19 r Urgotter.Apartfrom the Egyptian,the origins of the oti-ose deities from the Classicaland Near Easterntraditions derive largely from divine conflict,theomachy, as often appears in Eliade's exam-ples, but for Cross,the divineconflict equalsthecreation of the cosmos; t represents cosmogonywhich is "characterizedby a conflict betweenthe old and the young gods out of which order,especially kingship, is established in the cos-mos."20Thus Cross comes to focus on what ul-timatelyevolves into the so-called "kingship nheaven" theme, a single set of events whichC. Scott Littleton describes as followsand whichcarriessome resemblance o the patternoutlinedby Eliade for the generationof otiose deities:

    1. an existing generation of gods [which]waspreceded by two (and in some cases three)earliergenerationsof supernaturalbeings,2. each succeeding generation being pre-sided over by a 'king of heaven' who hasusurped (or at least assumed) the powerofhis predecessor.3. Moreover, there is generally a fourthfigure, a monster of some sort, who, actingon behalf of the deposed 'king' . . . pre-sents a challenge to the final heavenlyrulerand must be overcomebefore4. the latter can assert full and perpetualauthority.21

    As one can see in the above outline, withinthis scheme are embedded three kinds of di-vine actions: theogony or birth of the gods,cosmogonyor creation of the cosmos,and theo-machy or battle among the deities. FollowingCross'sthought on these matters, one finds inthe theogony the concept of sexualprocreation,althoughthere is no discussionof howthe "orig-inal"deities came to be. In some of the cultures,there exists a series of male-femalepairsof godssuch as the EgyptianKekand Keket,male andfemale darkness,or the Akkadianrhymingpairssuch as Enki and Ninki. A variantcontains bi-nary opposites, e.g., heaven and earth, sweetwatersand saltwaters.From these kindsof pairsemerge the activegods,22 he theogony.Although at first glance, the presence of acosmogonyin Littleton'spatternis far from evi-dent, cosmogonic figuresare seen to be presentwhen the specificdeities are identified. In addi-tion, when the gods appear in pairs of binaryopposites, as in heaven and earth, the cosmog-ony carries a dualistic sense and the theogonyand cosmogony may be seen as one, thoughCross notes that the theogony commonlyservesas a prologue to a cosmogony.23Finally,theo-machy can also result in a cosmogony,and it isthis concept on which Cross focuses in his dis-cussion of the "Olden Gods,"but which Little-ton presentsas the "Kingshipn Heaven" heme.The concepts are complementary, having onlya different emphasis: creation with resultantolden gods for Crossand kingshipin heavenforLittleton.Littletoninitiallydescribesthe theme througha discussion of Hesiod's Theogony from eighthcenturyGreece24aswell as the Greek Bibliothecaof Apollodorus, the latter heavily indebted to,but not identicalwith, the former. The Theogonyopens with the birth of Chaos and then Gaia,but givingno apparentparentagefor either one.Each bore the initial offspring autogenously,

    19E M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods',329.20F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'329.21C. S. Littleton,The 'Kingshipn Heaven' Theme. MythandLawAmongheIndo-Europeans,d.J. Puhval.Berkeleyand

    LosAngeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress(1970), 84. Thedivision of numbers s my interpretation.22F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'329-32.23F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'333.24H. G.EvelynWhite,ed., Hesiod, heHomeric ymns, ndHomerica.he Loeb ClassicalLibrary.Cambridge,MA:Har-vard UniversityPress (1914); A. Athanasakis,ed., Hesiod:Theogony,Works ndDays,Shield.Baltimore,Johns HopkinsUniversityPress(1983).

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    64 JARCEXXXV (1998)that is, without the benefit of mates. In Gaia'scase, most of the early offspring provided thebasic form of the earthlyworld,e.g., mountainsand the sea. After she bore Ouranos,she matedwith him to bear the so-calledTitans,but as shebore them, she was forced to keep them withinher womb. In time, wearyof her load, she chal-lenged her children to free her, at which pointKronos,her last borne child by Ouranos,rose tothe challenge and castratedhis father, thus sep-arating earth and sky. At a later point in thenarrative,Kronos, n matingwith his sisterRhea,swallowed their resulting children, the Olympi-ans, save the last borne, Zeus,who, unbeknownto his father, was born and hidden under thesupervisionof his grandmother,Gaia.Againthelast-born,supported by his siblings, successfullychallenged his father and his father's siblings,the Titans, relegating them to the underworld.Zeus'sleadership kingshipin heaven wasnotconfirmed, however,until he defeatedTyphoeus,the last offspring of his grandmotherGaia andfatheredbyTartaros.Throughout the poem, the different featuresof the knownphysicaland spiritualGreek worldappeared through the mating of variousdeitieswithother deities,and once Zeus arrived n clearascendancy, he concepts of law andjustice andwisdom and peace came into being. Interest-ingly, the creation of humanity appears in thisnarrativeonly as the creation of woman, andthat occurs as a punishment for the deeds ofmen. It is clearly simplyan incidental aspect ofthe full narrative.The BabylonianEnumaElish,known from thelate second millennium b.c.e.,25 provides asimilarstory, though with some distinctivedif-ferences. In this myth, Apsuand Tiamat,respec-tively the fresh and salt waters of primordialtime, are battled successivelyand respectivelybythe gods Enki and his son Marduk.Unlike theGreek narrative,in the Babylonianmyth, Enkiis not fought by his son, but rather the formerdefers to the latter's ability to succeed against

    Tiamatand rule as king of the gods. In addition,a council of the gods met at Marduk'srequestbefore he went to battle Tiamat, essentiallytoconfirm his power before and over them. Inanother difference, instead of the earth serv-ing as the beginning point, in the EnumaElishthe earth comes into being as a result of Mar-duk'ssuccessfulstrugglewith Tiamat,as he usesher body to make the features of the earth,the cosmogony.26Along the way, and signifi-cantly, humanity is created from the blood ofthe treacherousKingu, he son-spouseof Tiamat.The purpose of this creation was to serve theneeds of the gods.Creation stories from other ancient but lesswell-knownNear Eastern sources show similarpatterns.The creation stories from the Hurrian-Hittite tradition27tell that Alalu, the originaldeity (withno cited origin), wasdeposed byAnuand sent to the "DarkEarth."Anu in turn wasdefeated by Kumarbi and fled to the sky, butthe latter bit Anu, swallowing his "mankind"and thus becoming impregnated. In due time,Kumarbigave birth to various gods includingthe weathergod Tessub,who eventuallydeposedhim.The Phoenician shows a similar pattern, asrelated by Sanchuniathon and preserved byEusebius in Praeparatiovangelica1.10.15-29.28The birth of Elioun and Berouth (the formereventuallykilled by wild animals) was followedby the birth of Uranus and Ga. Uranus, theruler, wished to kill his and Ga's children, butwasdeposed byEl/Kronoswho eventuallycut offUranus'sgenitals. El/Kronosfought his siblingsalong the way and also protected his motherfrom his father who sought to force her at dif-ferent times.The Ugaritic narrative enters at a differentpoint from the previous exemplars,in that in it,

    25 S. Dalley, ed. tr., Myths rom Mesopotamia.Creation, TheFlood, Gilgameshand Others.Oxford; New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press (1989), 228-77; B. R. Foster, tr., From DistantDays: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. Be-thesda,MD:CDLPress(1995), 9-51.

    26Curiously he details of Tiamat'sdefeat suggest she isa monster rather than salt watersshe initiallyrepresented,and in the end she becomes the earth.27Most recently published in H. A. Hoffner, Jr., HittiteMyths.Atlanta, GA:ScholarsPress (1990), 40-43. In thisvolume, Hoffner has included numerous related materialsand discussions.28F.M. Cross,The 'Olden Gods,' 329-38; C. E. L'Heu-reux, Rank Among the Canaanite Gods. El, Ba'al, and theRepha'im.Missoula,Montana:ScholarsPress(1979), 31-49.

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    OTIOSE DEITIESAND THE ANCIENTEGYPTIANPANTHEON 65the supreme god El is in place, and he does notsupport Baal, the storm god, in his attempt toachievekinshipover the gods. Instead Baalmustbattle both Sea (Yam),"El'sdarling"and Death(Mot), also "El'sdarling,"n order to achieve hisgoal. This Baal does, though not without inci-dent. InitiallyBaal loses his last battle, but withhis sister-wifeAnat'shelp he ultimately emergesvictorious, the imagery describing the battlesfrequentlybeing discussedas a legacyto the Isra-elite god from the Canaanite.29As in the exam-ples from the Hurrian/Hittite and Phoenician,the Canaanitenarrativeof Baal forms part of acycle and most likelywas part of an oral tradi-tion before being written down.In each of these narratives,one finds a theog-ony, a cosmogony, and several theomachies,resulting in a king in heaven at the expense ofthe activelife of the primordialgod or gods. Inother words, violence between the generationsends in the defeat of the older generation andits being "retired,"hus resulting in the first ofthe olden gods.30Accordingto Littleton,an im-portant point of the kingship in heaven themederives from the displacement,but not the kill-ing, of the olden gods by the younger gods.Thus the question of parricide does not arise;instead one sees an act of rendering the earlierdeity powerless.31He is castrated n the case ofUranos, relegated to the watery deeps in thecase of Apsu, or thrown "to the dark earth"aswith Alanuin the Hurrian-Hittite.32n each casethe original deity is clearly deposed and his or

    her place taken by an offspring,who in turn isdeposed. Even the apparentkilling in this typeof sequence as it occurs in the Akkadian theo-gonic/cosmogonic text found at Dunnu, proba-bly dating from second millennium b.c.e.,33comprises a distancing and deactivatingof thedeities rather than an annihilatingdeath. In thislast text,

    Amakandu "killedHain, his [fatherand]Laid [him] to rest in Dunnu, . . . [and]Lahar,son of Amakandu,went [and]Killed Amakandu . . ,34killings which are replicated through at leastthe five generations, at which point the textbreaks off. Distinctively, the killings includemothers, e.g., Sea and Earth,as well as fathers.The extreme number of generations involvedsuggestsa greaterfocus and concern on the es-tablishmentof the features of the knownworld,earth, river, sea, and the like, that is on cos-mogony, than on the establishing a king inheaven, although one might speculate, in lightof neighboring myths, especially the EnumaEl-ish,that ultimatelya deity would attain a secureposition as king of heaven.The thrust of these narrativesclearly movestoward the establishment of the king of thegods, and thus one finds that the kingship ofthe gods is rooted in the order of creation.Humans appear only minimally, if at all. Per-haps other origin traditions of different typesexisted in these cultures, but they are hardlyknown;thus the modern researchersees a some-what singular myth for each culture within acollection of which he or she maydivine a pat-tern, as did Littleton and Cross.When one moves to the world of the Egyp-tians, however,one faces not only a number ofcreation traditions, emanating from differenttownsand thus differing in the deities involvedand their actions, but also creation traditionslacking the dominant theomachies found else-where. Certainly Egyptologists will recognizeHeliopolis, Hermopolis, and Memphis as the

    29M. D.Coogan,CanaaniteOriginsand Lineage:Reflec-tions on the Religionof Ancient Israel. Ancient sraelite eli-gion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. J. PatrickD. Miller, P. D. Hanson and S. D. McBride. Philadelphia:Fortress 1987), 124, n. 33.30Although Hittite/Hurrianmythology also presents atheomachy n which the conflict for kingshipover the godsdrivesthe narrative;A. Goetze, "HittiteMyths, Epics, andLegends," Ancient Near Eastern TextsRelating to the Old Testa-ment, d. J. B. Pritchard.Princeton,NJ: Princeton Univer-sity Press (1969), 120-28; H. A. Hoffner, Jr., HittiteMyths,38-40; R. LeBrun (1995). "FromHittite Mythology:TheKumarbi Cycle," Civilizationsof the Ancient NearEast, ed J. M.Sasson. New York:Scribner,III: 1971-1980), it appearstolack a clear, accompanying heogonic/cosmogonic contentsuch as appears n both the Akkadian/Babylonianraditionand Hesiod.31C. S. Littleton,The 'Kingship n Heaven'Theme, 88.32C. S. Littleton,The 'Kingship n Heaven'Theme, 94.

    33S. Dalley,ed. tr.,MythsromMesopotamia,78.A. K. Grayson,"ABabylonianTheogony,"AncientNearEasternTextsRelating to the Old Testament, d. J. B. Pritchard.Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress(1969), 518.

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    66 JARCEXXXV (1998)sources of creation by respectivelythe Enneador nine, the Ogdoador eight (asfour pairs),andPtah with his Logos creation by means of heartand tongue. What is less well known, especiallyto the non-Egyptologist, s that numerous otherlocales had different theogonic and cosmogonictraditions,for instance Edfu,35Philae,36Esna,37and Karnak,38o name a few. What is also fasci-nating is that these traditionsdrew freely fromone another and from the Egyptianmythiccor-pus in general to presentoriginnarrativeswhichone Egyptologist has described as "religiousgerrymandering."39orexample,a close readingof the Memphite theology, known for its crea-tion by thought or "heart" ndwordor "tongue,"shows an amalgamationof features of the godPtah with ideas drawn from the Heliopolitantheology.40 Similarly,at Esna one finds Neithas primordialcreatorembodyingand using con-cepts derived from the Memphite and Helio-politan theogonic cosmogonies,to note only twoof her modalities of creation.41Thus to speakof one Egyptiantheogony and/ or cosmogonyistrulyproblematic, ndeed impossible.42Given Cross's identification of the ntrwp?w-tyw, he primevalgods of Egypt,as olden gods,"retired" r "dead"gods,43who had templesandreceived cult in contradistinction to olden gods

    such as those of the Akkadian, Greek, andHittite/Hurrian raditions,44he Egyptiandeitiesand their respective cosmogonies and theogo-nies are worthyof some considerable attentionin a discussion of comparative raditions.Partic-ularly nterestingis how they attained the statusof olden gods, retired or dead. Not surpris-ingly, here one encounters several different sce-narios.The HermopolitanOgdoad,the companyto which Crossrefersexclusivelyand repeatedly,is composed of four pairs, Nun and Naunet,representing water, watery vastness; Heh andHehet, standing for spacious endlessness; Kekand Keket, darkness and obscurity;and finallyAmun and Amaunet who represent invisibility.45From the descriptionsof these deities, it is clearthat the members of the Ogdoad representformlessness and potential more than anythingelse, the whole easily described by the word"chaos."46 t one point, this company generatedlight as its memberspushed itself together intoa solid primordialhillock, motivatedby a forcewhichKurtSethe likened to the motivating orce

    35E. A. E. Reymond, "Worship f the Ancestor Gods atEdfu."Chronique tgypte 38 (75) (1963), 49-70; E. A. E.Reymond, TheMythicalOrigin of theEgyptian Temple.Manches-ter, England, and New York:ManchesterUniversityPress(1969); R. B. Finnestad, Image of the Worldand Symbolof theCreator.On theCosmological nd IconologicalValuesof theTempleofEdfu.Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz1985).36 L. V. Zabkar, Hymns to Isis in Her Templeat Philae. Han-over, NH: UniversityPress of New England (1988), esp.HymnIV.S. Sauneron, Les Fetesreligieusesd'Esna.38E. Cruz-Uribe,"The Khonsu Cosmogony," ournal ofthe AmericanResearchCenter n EgyptXXXI (1994), 169-89.39E. Cruz-Uribe 1994), "The KhonsuCosmogony," 85.For a recent discussion of this text, see E. Iverson,TheCosmogonyof the ShabakaText; Studies n Egyptologyre-sented o MiriamLichtheim,d. S. Israelit-Groll,Jerusalem:The MagnesPress,HebrewUniversity 1990), I: 485-93.41S. Sauneron (1962), LesFetes eligieuses'Esna, 53-71.42The same should be minimally apparent for at leastsome of the other culturesdiscussed,as shownbythe Greekand Akkadian raditions.43F. M. Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'329-30. AccordingtoHornung (Conceptions,60) gods die but are not dead since

    there is constant renewal. Thus he says"to be dead is notthe same as not to exist."The common Egyptianexpressionis that the god is restingor at rest;withOsiris,he is "on hisside."44F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'330 and 337,n. 18.45The inclusion, one should say "insertion," f Amunand Amaunet comes relatively late, and other pairs areknown to fill this fourth slot at different times,e.g., Gereh/Gerhet, Nia/Niat. Amun exists elsewhere as an indepen-dent deity in different roles: K. Sethe, Amunund die achtUrgottervon Hermopolis.Eine Untersuchungu'berUrsprungundWesendes dgyptischenGotterkonigs. erlin, PreuBischen Akade-mie der Wissenschaften u Berlin (1929), and different ori-gins:F.Daumas,"L'origined'Amon de Karnak."BIFAO 5(1967): 201-14; E. Hornung, Conceptionsf God,84, n. 72.Furthermore Amun and Amaunet are attested as early asthe oldest PyramidTexts (Wenis,Pyr.446c) in Spruch301in which Niw (=Nun) and Nenet also make an appearance(Pyr.446a), but with no evidence of the full Ogdoad be-ing present. E.Hornung,ConceptionsfGod, 3-85, presentsa good discussion of female doubling, showingin particu-lar that whatappears n the Ogdoad is not merely a femalecounterpartof the male deity in every instance. For ex-ample,Amaunet had severalpriests, suggestingshe was theobject of cult in her own right:E. Hornung, ConceptionsfGod,84.46K. Sethe, Amun und die acht Urgotter,120. "Chaos,"from the Greek XAOI, actuallyrefers to the first state ofthe universehaving nformed matter and infinite space.

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    OTIOSEDEITIESAND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANPANTHEON 67ruDah f Genesis 1:2.47Having been catalyzedinto becoming something, they then become in-active, following which their mover, variouslyAmun48 or Thoth,49initiates creation with theemergence of a primordialmound from whichother deities and concrete materialor substance,that is, order, arise. As clear evidence of theirretirement/death in reality their logical suc-cession the Ogdoad received cult and thushonor in their dsr-s.t,"sacredplace," at KomDjeme, the Small Temple of Medinet Habu onthe westbank of the Nile.50Amun,the dominantdeity for virtuallyall of the New Kingdom theAmarna period with its singular deity in theAtonwasmerelyablipon the horizon routinelyvisitedKomDjemeaspartof cultic activities.51While the entombment of the HermopolitanOgdoad is perhapsthe one best knownto mod-ern scholars,it wasnot unique. One finds simi-larlyentombed deities at the temples of Edfu52and Esna,53 o mention only two examples. Inno case, however,does one find them entombeddue to divine conflict, that is theomachy,whichmay be a reason that these deities regularlyreceived cult in contrast to the olden gods ofother ancient eastern Mediterraneanmythic cy-cles. Wouldit not be natural to honor deceaseddeitieswhose time had passeddue to the naturalorder of events, even as ancestors were and arehonored in manycultures?Similarly ne can un-derstand a people's difficulties n honoring dei-

    ties such as Apsu, Tiamat,and Ouranos,deitieswho interfered with the natural succession ofeventsin the theogonyand/or cosmogonyby re-sistingthe expected successionbytheiroffspring.The foregoing is not to say that theomachy,including intergenerationalconflict, did not oc-cur within the ancient Egyptiancorpus, for itdid, but not as part of any of their cosmogo-nies.54The scheme of the HeliopolitanEnneadmakes this absence most clear.Lucidlyexpressedin the PapyrusBremner-Rhind,datingfrom 310b.c.e., the beginning of this myth relates thebirth of gods as a combined theogony and cos-mogony:Atum/Atum-Reproduces Shu and Tef-nut, classically onsideredair and moisture,whobear Geb and Nut, the earth and sky,and theyin turn bear Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis,and Neph-thys, though an alternative schema shows thebirth only of Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys,with Horus appearingas the offspringof Osirisand Isis.Atum/Atum-Re,Shu, Tefnut, Geb, andNut mightbe termed "oldengods"since theyarethe deities who form the cosmos proper, whileOsiris, Horus, Seth, Isis,and Nephthyscould becalled the "younger gods" due to their activityin the earthly sphere. Actuallyof the five, onlyHorus and Seth, as activeroyal gods, functionedin the daily life of the Egyptians. Osiris, Isis,and Nephthys tended to operate largelyin the

    mortuaryrealm, as did Nut, though she contin-ued to be cosmically active as the daily bearerof the sun and stars.55After telling of the birth of the gods andthus the cosmos, the PapyrusBremner-Rhinddescribes Re's daily battle against Apophis inorder to achieve rebirth, that is, to rise in theeastern sky.56As such, Apophis, a non-cosmo-gonic deity and Re'sarch-enemy,representedallthatwasantithetical o orderwithinthe Egyptian

    47K.Sethe, Amunund die achtUrgotter,123, 151, 263.48G.Roeder,"Zwei ieroglyphischeInschriften aus Her-mopolis (Ober-Agypten)." nnalesdu Service esAntiquiteseI'Egypte2 (2nd fascicle) (1954): 372-73.9 Roeder, "ZweihieroglyphischeInschriften aus Her-mopolis (Ober-Agypten),"67-69, 437.50Evidence of a temple on this spot dates to the earlyMiddleKingdomunder MentuhotepII or III, and cult wascertainlycelebratedhere in the eighteenth dynastybeforeHatshepsut's eign,U. Holscher,1939. TheExcavationfMedi-net Habu VolumeI. The Templesf theEighteenthDynasty.Chicago:The Universityof ChicagoPress,44-45; R. Stadel-mann, Medinet Habu. Lexikon erAgyptologie,d. W.Helckand E. Otto. Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz 1980), III, col.1255-1258.51B. J. Kemp, AncientEgypt.Anatomyof a Civilization.London and New York:Routledge (1991), 206.52E. A. E. Reymond, TheMythicalOriginof theEgyptianTemple.Manchesterand New York:ManchesterUniversityPress(1969).53S. Sauneron,LesFetes eligieusesEsna.

    54For a recent discussion on divine conflict, albeit lim-ited primarily o the PyramidTexts,see V.A. Tobin,"DivineConflict in the PyramidTexts." ournalof the AmericanRe-searchCenternEgyptXXX (1993), 93-110.55This concept appearson variousceilings of royalsar-cophagus chambers,for example that of RamesesVI, aspart of the Underworldbooks in which Nut gives birth tothe sun every morningafterswallowingt each evening.R. O. Faulkner,ThePapyrusBremner-RhindBritishMu-seumNo. 10188). Bruxelles,Edition de la FondationEgyp-tologique Reine Elisabeth (1933), esp. 166 for a referenceto ritual use.

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    68 JARCEXXXV (1998)tradition,a role which Seth also assumed to onedegree or another, especiallyin the first millen-nium b.c.e. when he wasactuallyreviled.57Bothdeities represented a challenge to order, but inactualbattle, neither deity won or wasdefeatedforever,as occurredin mythsfrom the other an-cient Near Eastern traditions.

    Similarly,the thirtieth dynastynaos from Is-mailia, in relating the works of Shu and thetribulationsof Geb,describesattackson the godsby the children and cohorts of Apophis andthe gods' defense against hese attacks.58 he textalso mentions a revolution in the dwelling ofShu,after which Gebappearson the throne, thatis in Shu's place, suggesting that some kind ofdivine conflictoccurred,butwhetherthis conflictis intergenerationalor not is open to question,given the lack on specifics on the revolution.GeorgesGoyonhas speculatedthat Shumaynothave succeeded in reestablishingorder after theattacks of Apophis and company, thus leadingto his abdication in favorof Geb.59The text isbroken and filled with lacunae, however, andthus firm statements about what happened can-not be made. Perhapsthe idea of decorum, theavoidance of referring to certain topics undergiven situations, s in force here, but one cannotbe sure.60Another divine battle, again lackingthe inter-generational content, appearson the cenotaphof Seti I.61In this narrative,Geb is angrywithNut for swallowingheirchildren,the stars.Theirfather Shu steps in and separateshis children,thus distancing heaven from earth a cosmog-onic action but unusual in that the older, notthe younger, generation effects the act. Themotif constitutes one of a number from differ-ent cultures which describe mythologicallytheseparation/ reation of heavenand earth.62More

    common models include those noted above:theMesopotamian, n which the earth and skycomefrom Marduk's plitting of the body of Tiamatafter he defeated her, while her husbandApsuforms the watery deeps; and the Greek, whichmakes use of a castration motif in which Oura-nos and the primordial mother Gaia must beseparatedby severingthe god's phallus, a motiffound in other cultures as well.63In these lasttwocases,a succeeding generation accomplishesthe separation,and one might view all three asa differentiation of the primordial matter, theUrstoff.What one might term the classic theomachyin Egyptianmythology appearsin the intragen-erational struggle between the brothers Horusand Seth seen particularlyn the PyramidTexts.This mythic conflict, a complex one, both pre-dates the oldest cosmogonic stratum64 nd con-tains a number of roots, at least some of whicharepolitical.65Even n its earliestform,the strug-gle culminates in the successful attainment ofthe thronebyHorus. The throne, however, s notthatrepresentingthe kingshipof the gods, as inthe other ancient eastern Mediterranean cul-tures,but ratherthat of the kingshipof the TwoLands, that is, Egypt. Given that in Egypt thecontenders are gods, however, it is difficult tospeak of it as a battle for the kingshipof earth,although the Egyptian king was referred to asthe Horus king. Here one can see at least twotraits distinctive to the Egyptiantradition.First,the divine nature of the contenders calls intoquestion the nature of the kingship:it is not ofheaven, but do gods rule on earth?The subjectof much discussion over the years, the positionof the Egyptianking, heir to the throne of Geb,is expressed iconographicallyin the writing of

    57H. te Velde, Seth,Godof Confusion. eiden: E. J. Brill(1977).58G.Goyon, "LesTravauxde Chou et les tribulationsdeGeb."Kami (1936), 1-42.59G.Goyon,"LesTravaux e Chou."Kemi (1936),30,n. 1.See J. Baines,Fecundity igures: gyptian ersonificationand theIconology f a Genre.Warminster,England (1985),277-305.61R. Parker and O. Neugebauger, EgyptianAstronomicalTexts. rovidence,RI:BrownUniversityPress(1960), 67-68.b^K. Numazawa,The Cultural-HistoricalBackgroundofMythson the Separationof Skyand Earth(reprintof Back-ground of Mythson the Separationof Skyand Earth from

    the Point of View of CulturalHistory,Scientia 1 [1953])28-35, ed. A. Dundes,Sacred arrative: eadingsn theTheoryof Myth,Berkeley,LosAngeles, London: Universityof Cali-fornia Press(1984), 182-92.bdAlan Dundes' introduction to Numazawa (1984) ined. A. Dundes, (1984), Sacred arrative: eadingsn theTheoryofMyth rovidesa fine discussionof motifsrelated to creationnarratives nd alsogivesadditionalreadingon the topic.64J. G. Griffiths,TheConflict f Horusand SethromEgyp-tian and ClassicalSources; iverpool: Liverpool UniversityPress(1960).65J. Baines,Originsof EgyptianKingship,ed. D. O'Con-nor and D. Silverman,AncientEgyptianKingship;Leiden:E.J. Brill (1995), 9:95-156.

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    OTIOSE DEITIESAND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANPANTHEON 69his name first in the serekh and later in thecartouche. The serekh suggests that Egyptiankings served as a bridge between heaven andearth, concretely illustratedby the king's namewritten between the divine falcon, designatingthe realm of the gods, and a palace facade,representing the earth. For its part, the cartou-che emphasizesthe king'srule over the orderedworld, that which is encircled. Thus the acces-sion of the divine king comes naturallywithinthe generation of the gods who ordered theworldof the TwoLands.Second, unlike other traditions, the enemy,Seth, is incorporated nto the kingshipfollowinghis defeat; he does not retire but remains anactive and integral part of the kingship. Onesees this concept throughout historyin the ide-ology of Egyptiankingship,and it appearsmostclearlyin the iconographyof throne bases fromall periods on which Horus and Seth tie Lowerand Upper Egypttogetherwith the papyrusandthe lotus flowers.In itself, this resolution distin-guishes the Egyptiantheme of theomachy andkingshipfrom that of its neighbors.In fact, sev-eral times in historySeth comes to the fore, asshownin the serekh of Khasekhemwy f the sec-ond dynastyand in the Sethian names of severalnineteenth dynastykings,for example Seti I.A variant form of theomachy presents anintergenerationalstrugglefor kingship.Relatedin narrative orm byPlutarch n De hide et Osiridein the second centuryc.e.,66the narrativeopenswith Seth effecting the death of his brotherOsiris67bymeans of deviousplotting.The inter-generational aspect appears when Osiris's sonHorus,Seth'snephew, successfully eeksrevengeagainstSeth for this deed, a concept also pres-ent in the twentieth dynasty Papyrus ChesterBeatty I in "The Contendings of Horus andSeth."68 gain,the resolution of this conflict didnot result in any "olden gods"or the annihila-

    tion of any of the participants,but rather it at-tempted to address n a theoreticallysatisfactorywaythe issue of the death of the divine king.69Clearly he strugglesof this "younger" enera-tion of gods do not result in "olden gods."In-steadtheyconcern the divine kingshipon earth.The one addresseswho is to be king (the godHorus), and the other defines who will succeedto the throne on the death of the god king(Horus, the son of Osiris). Osiris thus appearsas the king of the underworld,very much aliveand active. His distance is that which separatesthe world of the dead from that of the livingand he is definitely involved with the world ofthe living throughwhat we modernsmight termthe tenuousness of life, the latter expressed inancientEgypt n phrasescollectedbyJanZandeedescribingdeath as an enemy.70Behind the Egyptians' ack of concern aboutkingshipin heaven lies an understandingof theworld in which they lived as a holistic entitywhichincluded both gods and humans,71 t leastso the texts would lead us to believe. For exam-ple, the "Tale of Two Brothers," ound in thelate nineteenth dynasty Papyrusd'Orbiney,de-scribes the Ennead as walking about the landand being concerned that the protagonistwaslonely (P. d'Orb. 9, 2-9, 7).72 There is, there-fore, no need for a theomachy to displace anearlier generation of deities, although a se-quence of generations on the throne exists, asthe Ismailia naos demonstrates:Re is followedby Shuwho is followedby Geb. Numerous othersources also show that earlier generations weresucceeded by later generations, most especiallythe RoyalCanon of Turin from the nineteenthdynasty. Its king list details the sequence ofgods who occupied the kingship initially, i.e.,

    66J. G. Griffiths,ed., trans., commentary,Plutarch'sDeIside et Osiride,Universityof WalesPress (1970); E. Brun-ner-Traut,Altdgypthischedrchen, 21-26, 305-6.As a note, Osiris is originally a deity and alwaysamember of the netherworldor underworld.J. G. Griffiths,The Origins of Osiris and His Cult,Leiden: E. J. Brill (1980),ch. l,esp. 1-17.M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book ofReadings. Volume I: The New Kingdom, 214-23; E. Brunner-Traut(1997), Altdgypthischedrchen, 27-41, 306-10.

    69I wonder if this is more a problem in our modernminds than for the ancient Egyptians,both politicallyandmythically.70J. Zandee,Death sanEnemy. eiden,E.J. Brill(1960).R. B. Finnestad, Egyptian Thought about Life as aProblem of Translation. TheReligion of the AncientEgyptians:Cognitive Structure and Popular Expression,ed. G. Englund,Uppsala,Acta UniversitatisUpsaliensis(1989), 20: 30.2 M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book ofReadings, vol. II: The New Kingdom, 203-11. E. Brunner-Traut, AltdgyptischeMdrchen, 60-72, 289-93. For discussion,see S. T. Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian "Taleof Two Brothers":The OldestFairy Tale n the World;Norman and London: Uni-versityof OklahomaPress(1990), esp. 133-34.

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    70 JARCEXXXV (1998)the GreatEnnead, the Lesser Ennead, and thedivine spirits, followed by various "houses"ofkings. These groupings correspond to "gods,""demigods," heroes," nd dynastiesas describedbyManetho of the third centuryc.e.73Significantly,the reigns of these deities werelimited and had an end.74 In this context theaging of Re in the Book of the Heavenly Cowmakessense, as does his aging in the nineteenthdynastystoryof Isis'strickery o gain knowledgeof his most secret name.75This narrativerelatesof Re that "a divine age caused his mouth tobe flabbyand he allowed his spittle to drop toearth."76From the combination of earth andspittle, Isis constructed a serpent which bit thegod, causing him pain from which he could notescape until he confided his secret name toher. The concepts of age, pain, andwearinessthe latter term also describing Re in the open-ing phraseof the "Destructionof Mankind"77 swell as describingAtum in Coffin Text Spell 80(CT II:34h) are critical to the Egyptian per-ception of the nature of divine existence. To-gether with the understandingof limited reignsof deities, of which these ideas are a part, aging,pain, and wearinesspoint to the possible deathof different gods other than Osiris.78For exam-ple, Coffin Text Spells 99 and 1100 refer to thedeath/ threatened death of gods, in the lattercase, of Re (CT VII, 419b) and in the formerNeper, the grain god (CT II 95e). Other exam-ples include Chapters 17, 154, and 175 of theBook of the Dead, each of which refers to thedeath or potential death of gods. In Chapter17Atum goes "to the Field of Rushes,"a place inthe Underworld,the world of the dead, and he"causedevery god to descend" to the west, thatis, to die,79while the deceased in Chapter 154implores Osiris to take him in his train, "thatIdecay not, as you have made to (decay) everygod and every goddess."80Finally, in Chapter

    175, the deceased states that in a final destruc-tion, only he and Osiriswill survive.81Clearly he deitieswho areweary,age, and dieamong the Egyptiansare hardlyolden or otiosegods accordingto Cross'sor Eliade's definitions.What Cross has missed Eliade does not spe-cificallyaddress the Egyptian situation is thenature of death as perceived by the Egyptians.As Hornung expresses it, gods and men die,"butthey are not dead."82 ndeed, the PyramidTexts affirm that "Yousleep but you will wake;you havedied but you will live"(1975b).83Ragnhild BjerreFinnestad has described thecycleas a "monisticontology" n which "death sa phrase of an ongoing renewal of existence."84The theme of ongoing renewal is ancient forthe Egyptians,and so while the death of a god isproblematicfor modern western thought whichequates divinitywith immortality,such a deathseems not to have proved to be a problem forthe ancient Egyptian, or it did not constitute anend. Death served rather as part of the contin-uum of regeneration (in its most ideal presenta-tion), although death may appear as the enemyfor individual human lives.85The daily cycle ofthe sun in this sun-filled land demonstrates theidea verywell: the sun goes to rest, i.e., dies, inthe evening and is reborn from Nut, the nightsky, in the morning. In fact, for the Egyptiansthe only terminal cases of death involve thedamned,86the annihilation of the enemies ofthe Lord of the Universe,who are relegated tonon-existence, as noted in Chapter 17 of theBook of the Dead.87When one puts all this materialtogether, onesees that while Egyptian heogonic, cosmogonic,and theomachic materialsexist, they differ sig-nificantlyfrom those of their neighbors in theancient Mediterranean,and the differencesrep-resent much more than the statement that thepresence of cult for the Ogdoad is "the excep-tion which proves the rule" that olden gods do73 D. B. Redford, Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books:A Contribution o the Study of theEgyptian Senseof His-

    tory;Mississauga: Benben Publications (1986), 13.7 Hornung, Conceptionsof God,154.5 Brunner-Traut, AltdgyptischeMdrchen,313-14.76 Brunner-Traut, AltdgypthischeMdrchen,150.77 Hornung, DerdgyptischeMythosvon derHimmelskuh,1/y Hornung, Conceptionsof God n Ancient Egypt,153-55.T. G. Allen, The Book of the Dead or GoingForth by Day;Chicago, University of Chicago Press (1974), 27-28.8UAllen, The Bookof theDead, 154.

    81Allen, TheBookof theDead, 184.^zHornung, Conceptionsof God,160.Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts: Supple-ment,285. Hornung, Conceptionsof God,160.84 Finnestad, Egyptian Thought, 20: 31.8bCf. Zandee, Death as an Enemy; Leiden: E. J. Brill(1960).86 Hornung, Conceptionsof God,160.8/ Hornung, Conceptionsof God,179-82.

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    OTIOSE DEITIESAND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANPANTHEON 71not receive cult.88A major conceptual distinc-tion exists between how the Egyptians'viewedtheir origins, even with the plethora of cos-mogonies, and how their neighbors approachedthe same issues. In short, the Egyptians gener-ally saw their creation in an evolutionary way,not predicated on conflict, while their neigh-bors, perhapsmore involvedin conflict in orderto preservetheir veryexistence, perceived theircosmos as developing through conflict. Simi-larly,the Egyptiankingshipderived from a mythwhollyseparatefrom the cosmogonic narrative,again differing significantlyfrom the kingshipin heaven theme evidenced by their neighbors.Perhapsthis difference appearsbecause no cor-relation exists for the Egyptiansbetween king-

    ship in heaven thatwasa given and kingshipin the land. In fact, oddly, conflict between thedifferent chief gods is also absent, probablybe-cause of the syncretistic approach to deitieswhich characterizedEgyptianthinking.In conclusion,while the Egyptiansshared theconcept of olden gods with their neighbors,thewhy and how of these deities differed signifi-cantly. Similarly he Egyptianssharedwith theirneighbors the idea of divine battle to establishkingship,but they tended toward ncorporationand syncretizationof the defeated rather thanthe annihilationgenerallyfavoredby the rest ofthe ancient easternMediterraneanworld.StateUniversityof New YorkEmpireStateCollege88F. M.Cross,The 'Olden Gods,'337,n. 18.

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