Ennead

The Ennead or Great Ennead was a group of nine deities in Egyptian mythology worshipped at Heliopolis: the sun god Atum; his children Shu and Tefnut; their children Geb and Nut; and their children Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. The Ennead sometimes includes Horus the Elder, an ancient form of the falcon god, not the son of Osiris and Isis. The Great Ennead was only one of several such groupings of nine deities in ancient Egypt. Its claims to preeminence by its Heliopolitan priests were not respected throughout Egypt. As close as Memphis (also within modern Cairo), the priests of Ptah celebrated him as superior to the Nine. In addition to Memphis having its own creation myth, the Ogdoad (of the city of Hermopolis) centered around physical creation and eight primordial gods was another creation story that existed at the same time. The English name ennead is a borrowing via Latin of the Greek name enneás ( ἐννεάς ), meaning "the nine". The term was a calque of the Egyptian name, written psḏt and also meaning "the Nine". Its original pronunciation is uncertain, since hieroglyphs do not record vowels, but may have been /piˈsiːcʼat/ in Old Egyptian, /piˈsiːtʼaʔ/ in Middle Egyptian, and /pəˈsiːtʼə/ in Late Egyptian. Egyptologists conventionally transcribe it as Pesedjet. The ancient Egyptians created several enneads as their unification under brought numerous local cults into contact with one another. The ancient Egyptian mythology often had many different explanations for the same phenomenon. This concept is especially unique because no single story was more accurate than another, but rather the truth was a mix of them all. The Pyramid Texts of Dynasties V and VI mention the "Great Ennead", the "Lesser Ennead", the "Dual Ennead", and the "Seven Enneads". Some pharaohs established enneads that incorporated themselves as gods. The most notable case is of whose mortuary temple at Redesiyah celebrated an ennead of six major gods and three deified forms of himself. The ennead mentioned in the Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days, may reference the Pleiades.