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Key Details
Type
CityMythology
Egyptian Pantheon
Coordinates
30.131°N, 31.308°E
About This Location
Iunu, city of the Ennead
Heliopolis (Iunu) is the cult city of Ra-Atum and the Ennead: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephthys. Creation from the benben stone and the recitation of the solar theology belong here. The Pyramid Texts are soaked in Heliopolitan names. Little of the temple survives above ground. Herodotus and later Greeks called it the City of the Sun. It is a school of cosmogony more than a battlefield.
Primary Sources
“Atum is he who came into being, who masturbated in Iunu. He took his phallus in his fist and made orgasm, and the twins Shu and Tefnut were born.”
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