The word ogdoad has the same ending on it as "triad" -- a word that should be familiar, possibly from a game played on Battlestar Galactica or movies about Chinese organized crime. Triad refers to a group of 3. An ogdoad is a group of 8. In Egyptian mythology from Hermopolis (near the modern El Ashmunein), there was a group of 8 creator gods known as the Ogdoad of Hermopolis.
Like creator gods in Greek mythology, after these creator gods did their world-forming work, they faded from active service. In
"Otiose Deities and the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon"
Susan Tower Hollis
Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 35, (1998), pp. 61-72,
Hollis describes gods who no longer work hard as otiose (leisured). The Hermopolitan retirees are sometimes described as dead and in the Underworld. Nonetheless, they continue to supervise the basic world order by making sure the Nile flows and the sun shines. Otherwise, they aren't involved with mankind.
Read more about the Ogdoad of Hermopolis and Creation Stories.
* There is already much material on this site on the topic of mythology (especially, Gods and Goddesses and The Stories of the Ancient Greeks). In Myth Mondays I attempt to bring up an element of mythology that is either timely or less well known.
Comments
My comment is really more of a question….how many planets (incl. Sun & Moon) were in the Egyptian cosmology? Perhaps the Ogdoad correspond to these…or am i just fishing in shallow water?
Ancient Egyptian Astronomy
R. A. Parker
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 276, No. 1257, The Place of Astronomy in the Ancient World (May 2, 1974), pp. 51-65
“Throughout the three millennia of recorded Egyptian history we have nothing whatever to suggest that the movements of the Moon and planets were systematically observed…. To be sure there are many references in ordinary texts to the Sun, Moon and stars… but except for one cosmo-logical text… these convey little or nothing of astronomical import. “
Interesting article. Good job. The list of the origional 8 differs slightly from what I am use to reading. However, my knowlege on Egyptian Mythology is mostly based on Normandi Ellis’ poetic interepretation of the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” subtitled “Awakening Osiris”. Excellent book!
You’re leaving me in suspense, Bill. Which are the 8 you’re used to?