Benu Bird Egyptian Legend The Creation Myth Of Heliopolis

One of the creation myths of Heliopolis tells of the Benu Bird. IT gives an account of the first dawn and a heron skimming over the waters of the Nun until it comes to rest on a rock. As it did so, it opened its beak and a cry echoed over the water of the Nun. The world was filled with ‘that which it had not known’; the cry of the Benu Bird ‘determined what is and is not to be’. Thus, the Benu Bird, as an aspect of Atum, brought life and light to the world. The Benu Bird was said to have created itself from a fire which burned at the top of the sacred persea tree in Heliopolis and it rested on the Benben Stone, a pillar topped by a pyramid shaped stone (an obelisk), which became the most sacred fetish worshipped in the city. On the Metternich Stele, Isis says to her son, Horus: ‘Thou are the Great Benu who was born on the incense tree in the House of the Great Prince of Heliopolis”. The capstones of the pyramids and the pyramids themselves were thought to be a representation of the Benben Stone and the Kings buried beneath were under the direct protection of the Sun God. The Benu’s cry had begun the cycle of time, which the Egyptians believed to be divinely appointed. Divided as such: the twenty four hour day with twelve hours for both daytime and nighttimes, the ten days that comprised the Egyptian week, the thirty day month, the year of twelve months (365 days) and periods of 1460 years in which the civil and astronomical calendars diverged and then coincided again. The Temple of the Benu Bird at Heliopolis was primarily concerned with the regulation of the calendar and the Benu Bird itself became the deity concerned with the division of time.

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