1.2 Egypt
Some concern with astronomy had already been shown in a cosmology associated with the
rulers Seti I (r.c.1318 - c.1304 B.C.) and Ramses IV (r.c.1166 - c.1160
B.C.). The Egyptians had by then long been adept at measuring time and
designing calendars, using simple astronomical techniques. They too aligned their buildings
on the heavens. Some early Egyptian sources speak of a cult relating the Sun god Re
(represented in art with a man's body and a falcon's head surmounted by a solar disk) and an
earlier creator god Atum. The cult of Re-Atum was well established by the time of the first
great pyramids, that is, about 2800 B.C. At first this was centered mainly on
a temple to the north of the old Egyptian capital of Memphis. The place was known by the
Greeks as Heliopolis, 'City of the Sun', but by the Egyptians as On (located northeast of
Cairo, Egypt). By historical times, the priests of Heliopolis had laid down a cosmogony that
held Re-Atum to have generated himself out of Nun, the primordial ocean. His offspring were
the gods of air and moisture, and only afterthem, and as their offspring, were Geb, the
Earth god, and Nut, the sky goddess, created. The deities of Heliopolis, (the Great Ennead)
were made up with Osiris, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys, the off-spring of Geb and Nut.
1.3 Mesopotamia
In the dynasty of Hammurabi (r.c.1792 - c.1750 B.C.) in Babylonia not all
gods can be identified with stars. The three highest - Anu, Enlil, and Ea - corresponded to
the heavens, Earth, and water.
1.4 India and Persia
The oldest of the Vedic writings in Hinduism, the Rigveda (dating from between 1500 and
500 B.C.), gives more than one account of the creation of the world (Figure
2).