Summary

At the very beginning there was the myth, and more particularly the myth of the creation of the world. Because of their big analogy with funerary conceptions, several extracts of the cosmogonic myths were integrated within the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, ... Through these stories, the ancient Egyptians attempted to explain at best the observed reality : the world made up of the sky and the earth, populated by gods, humans, animals, plants, ... For this reason, certain aspects of the cosmogonic myth evolved with time, whereas others were enriched with many versions. This evolutional and probabilistic approach is most often described as modern. It guides the anthropologists, the paleontologists, the biochemists, the astrophysicists, the cosmologists, the physicians of the particles, in charge of recounting the history of the created world, from the primeval big bang to the appearance of mankind, going through the structuring of our matter universe, the appearance and evolution of life on earth. The similarity between the ancient and modern approaches is not the sole and only thing which the cosmogonic myths and theories have in common. The descriptions of the primeval universe, the notions relating to the end of the created world, are other things which they have in common, as the reading of this dossier testifies.

Author

Karine Gadré, Culture Diff' company-head.
Dates of first publication and successive updates : october 2004
This dossier gave rise to a lecture at Lyon in october 2004 and to a show-lecture close to Toulouse, France, in july 2005.

Access to the content

This dossier is made up of 40 pages and 34 illustrations. An interactive menu, a chronological space, a search by theme and by keywords are otherwise available. To access its content and check these functionalities, simply click on the upper menu.

Exlusively at Culture Diff'

From now on, each Egyptian term is written in the hieroglyphic and transliterated forms. In order to benefit from this improvement, simply download the related fonts then copy them in your file entitled True Type Fonts.

Further information

(Egyptian Gallery) Creation "Room"
(AstroEgypto) The rising of the Sun in ancient Egypt : a daily recreation
(AstroEgypto) The sky of ancient Egypt : stellar clocks, water clocks and astronomical ceilings

Bibliography

Alloin, Danièle et Boischot, André, "Galaxies", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Audouze, Jean et Lequeux, James, "Univers", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Bickel, Suzanne, "La cosmogonie égyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire", Editions Universitaires
Fribourg Suisse, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 134, 1994.
Boischot, André et Chièze, Jean-Pierre, "Etoiles", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Boischot, André et Lequeux, James, "La galaxie", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Boureau, Edouard et Piveteau, Jean, "Paléontologie", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Brack, André, "L'origine de la vie sur terre et le vie dans l'univers", Culture Diff' 2003.
Brack, André, "Origines de la vie", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Delaunay, Alain, "Gravitation et Astrophysique", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Forterre, Patrick, Grassé, Pierre-Paul et Petit, Claudine, "Evolution", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Furon, Raymond and Ricqlès, Armand de, "Fossiles et Fossilisation", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Génermont, Jean, "Espèce (biologie)", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Lachièze-Ray, Marc, "Cosmologie", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Lequeux, James, "Milieu interstellaire", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.
Ollivier, Marc, "Exoplanètes : à la recherche de nouveaux mondes", Culture Diff', 2004.
Robin, Eric, "Mondes en catastrophe : mythe ou réalité", Culture Diff', 2004.
Thaler, Louis, "Phylogenèse", Encyclopaedia Universalis, Version 9.