Atum or Aton

God who gives rise to the Great Ennead of Egyptian gods in the cosmogony of Heliopolis, where he was considered the demiurge.

Atum was the sole God, the creative force emanating from the beyond and from the entire known world. According to Ken Wilber, he was the first clearly monotheistic god, revealed by the pharaoh Akhenaten.

Atum embodies the setting sun in the guise of an old man, yet one who carries the promise of future life. At the end of time, according to a passage in the Book of the Dead, Atum will also be present and will recover his nature as a primordial being in the form of a serpent.

Vessel with Amenhotep III before the god Atum. Ancient Egypt, Museo Egizio, Turin.
Vessel with Amenhotep III before the god Atum. Ancient Egypt, Museo Egizio, Turin.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. CC0.

Atum is the origin of the genealogy of the Egyptian gods. From him (by means of masturbation) are born Shu, god of air, and Tefnut, goddess of water. These gods will beget Geb, god of the earth, and Nut, goddess of the sky, who in turn will beget Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys. The union of Osiris and Isis will give birth to Horus, the central myth of ancient Egypt. Osiris, for his part, is the first divine king of Egypt; his tragic death and miraculous resurrection provides the basis of the Egyptian mysteries and the origin of the myth of the rebirth of the deceased.