Tatenen

Tatenen is the first dry ground. Every Egyptian creation account needs a moment when something stands clear of the water, and at Memphis that moment has a name and a god: risen land. He is androgynous, which is usual for a figure that has to precede the distinction between things, and he holds the produce of the earth — food, offerings, minerals — because the mound is not merely geological but the source of everything that can be grown or dug. The benben stone, the mastaba and the pyramid are all restatements of him in stone.

Domains

• earth
• harvest

Relations

• counterpart of: PtahMerged with Ptah at Memphis as Ptah-Tatenen: the craftsman god who thinks and speaks the world, joined to the ground the world stands on. The registry carried Ptah and not the earth he was joined to.Reference treatment of Tatenen and of the Memphite theology, in which he is combined with Ptah as Ptah-Tatenen. (secondary)

Sources

• Tatenen is the Egyptian god of the primeval mound, the risen land, an androgynous earth god of the Memphis region combined with Ptah as Ptah-Tatenen.: Reference treatments of Tatenen, of the primordial mound and of Memphite theology. (secondary)