Zep Tepi, the First Time or First Occasion, is the primeval moment of creation in ancient Egyptian cosmology, when the first mound of earth rose from the waters of Nun and the first sunrise broke; it stands in Egyptian religious thought as the paradigm of perfected order that every later renewal reenacts, from the sun's own daily cycle to the New Year flood to a king's jubilee.
Facts
Dating
Proposed DatingZep Tepi carries no calendar date in any Egyptian source; it is deliberately set before ordinary time as the reference point every subsequent renewal measures itself against, though Egyptian king lists occasionally reached back toward it with a remote, semi legendary line of rulers, the Followers of Horus, placed in the age directly after it. 1 Identity
SymbolThe benben, the primeval mound rising from the waters of Nun, on which the creator god first stood, or alighted upon as a bird or a scarab beetle, to bring the world into being. 1 Attributions
TraditionAncient Egyptian religion 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Ancient Egyptians directly: "Zep Tepi, the First Time or First Occasion, is the primeval moment of creation in ancient Egyptian cosmology, when the first mound of earth rose from the waters of Nun and the first sunrise broke..."
Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)
Belongs to Tradition
The First Time, the primeval moment of creation in ancient Egyptian cosmology that every later renewal reenacts.
Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)
Corresponds To
Both traditions place a primordial age of superhuman or divine reigns before the ordinary, mortal length reigns of history proper begin, an instance of the pattern separating a remembered golden or primeval past from a diminished present that comparative studies of religion describe across many traditions.
Source The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and HistoryMircea Eliade; Willard R. Trask (trans.)
Under Patronage Of
Atum, Deities Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptDonald B. Redford (ed.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
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