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| The eight Heh deities who, along with the god Shu, supported the divine cow who represented the heavens in one vision of Egyptian cosmogony. Two of these deities supported each leg or "pillar of heaven". Outermost shrine of Tutankhamun. 18th Dynasty. Egyptian Museum. Cairo. |
og·do·ad Noun /ˈägdəˌwad/As four (symbolic totality) doubled, and hence intensified, the number eight is found in several groups of gods, as when the god Shu created eight Heh deities to help support the legs of the goddess Nut in her guise as the great heavenly cow. Although the names of the Egyptian gods and goddesses in such groups may vary in the Egyptian texts, the fact that they always add up to eight deities shows, that the concept of the group of eight was of greater importance than the specific deities which comprised the group. Ogdoads of eight deities often represent two sets of four or four sets of two gods and goddesses with the latter being more common.
ogdoads plural
- A group or set of eight
The greatest ogdoad - that of Hermopolis - provides a good example as it was composed of four pairs of primeval deities which represented the sum of existence before creation. The Hermopolitan Ogdoad was visualized in the form of four frog-headed deities - and their four respective consorts or female equivalents who were snake-headed goddesses. The nature of these deities was based on the symbolic idea of these animals as chthonic beings and as creatures associated with water and hence the primeval flood from which the created world emerged.
The individual deities comprising this ogdoad were:
