Mounds of Creation

Mounds of Creation

Mounds of Creation were one of were many kinds of temples in the Age of the Pyramids. Some, such as the sanctuary of Khnum at Elephantine, or the Sacred Precinct at Nekhen, were ancient places where rocks and stones marked out a sacred site. In several towns, a special Mound of Creation marked the place where the local deity had brought land out of chaos and begun the work of creation.

The existence of many of these Mounds of Creations shows that local gods and goddesses had originally been credited with the work of creation. When Egypt was united under one king, the world of gods and goddesses was also united under the sun god, Re, but older temples and stories were not destroyed. Students may ask - "Well, who did create the Universe? Re, or Atum? Neith, or Ptah?" The right answer would depend on which city you were in. Different stories of creation emphasized different ways of looking at the universe. Ancient peoples thought it perfectly appropriate that people from different parts of the country gave precedence to their own god or goddess.