The Ennead of Heliopolis is Egypt's foundational pantheon, a family of nine gods tracing back to the self-created sun Ra. From Ra came the air and moisture, who bore the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Their children — Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys — became the central actors of Egyptian myth.
From these siblings descended the next generation: Horus, son of Osiris and Isis and divine model of every pharaoh, and Anubis, the jackal-headed guardian of the dead. Together their stories of murder, magic, judgment, and rebirth defined how Egyptians understood kingship, the cosmos, and the eternal life that awaited beyond the tomb.
