Egyptian Gods Family Tree: An Interactive Chart of the Ennead, Osiris and Horus

This is the family tree of the Egyptian gods as the priests of Heliopolis told it: the Ennead of nine gods, from the creator Atum to Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, with Horus, Anubis and their children below and the families of Memphis, Thebes, Sais and Elephantine beside them. Select any name on the chart above to trace its line. Every link is tied to a source, ancient wherever we could find one; where only a modern reference supports it, or where the sources disagree, the entry says so.

The Egyptian gods family tree at a glance

The family at the centre of Egyptian myth is the Ennead of Heliopolis, nine gods in four generations. The Pyramid Texts, carved in royal tombs from about 2350 BCE, list them in order: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys (Utterance 600, §1655). The chart adds the gods who complete the story: Horus and Anubis, the four sons of Horus, the daughters of Ra, and the families worshipped in other cities.

1. Before creation. Nun, the dark primeval water, exists before the sky and the earth. The Pyramid Texts speak of a time “when the sky had not yet come into being, when the earth had not yet come into being” (Utterance 486, §1040).

2. The creator. Atum rises out of Nun by himself; no birth is described, though later texts call Nun his father. In Heliopolis he is the same god as Ra, the sun: the Pyramid Texts join the names as Ra-Atum and Atum-Khepri (Utterances 600, 606).

3. Air and moisture. Atum produces the twins Shu and Tefnut alone. The Pyramid Texts give two versions of how: by his own hand (Utterance 527, §1248) or by spitting them out (Utterance 600, §1652). A later papyrus combines the two.

4. Earth and sky. Shu and Tefnut are the parents of Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky. Papyrus Bremner-Rhind says simply: “Shu and Tefenet begat Geb and Nut.”

5. The children of Geb and Nut. Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, and in some lists a fifth, the elder Horus. Papyrus Bremner-Rhind names all five “one after the other”; Plutarch has them born on the five days added to the year.

6 and 7. Horus, Anubis and their children. Horus is the son of Isis and Osiris. His four sons guard the organs of the dead in the canopic jars, and Qebehut, who refreshes the dead king from four jars, is the daughter of Anubis.

The Ennead: who the nine gods are

• Atum: the self-created creator, the evening sun, and head of the nine.
• Shu: air and light, who holds the sky up off the earth.
• Tefnut: moisture, a lioness goddess, twin and wife of Shu.
• Geb: the earth, father of Osiris and judge of who inherits the throne.
• Nut: the sky, who in the Pyramid Texts also gives birth to the sun each day.
• Osiris: the first king, murdered by his brother and made ruler of the dead.
• Isis: his sister and wife, the great magician who brings him back to father a son.
• Set: storm and disorder, the brother who kills Osiris.
• Nephthys: the fourth child, who mourns Osiris beside Isis.

Ra and Horus are not counted among the nine. Ra is not a separate member because in Heliopolis he is Atum. Horus belongs to the next generation, and the Ennead ends with his parents. Press “The Ennead” above the chart to light up the nine.

The family of Osiris: Horus, Set and Anubis

The quarrel inside this family is the central myth of Egypt. Set kills his brother Osiris; Isis and Nephthys search for and mourn him; Isis revives Osiris long enough to conceive Horus, who grows up to fight Set for the throne. A New Kingdom hymn says Isis “drew from him his essence, and she made therefrom an heir”. On the Shabaka Stone, Geb gives Horus the whole inheritance “for he is the son of his firstborn son”.

That makes Set the uncle of Horus, but Egyptian writers were not consistent. In the New Kingdom tale of the Contendings of Horus and Seth, Seth is called Horus’s “elder brother” by some of the gods and his “maternal uncle” by others in the same story.

There are two gods called Horus, which explains much of the confusion. Horus son of Isis is the avenger of Osiris. Horus the Elder, the falcon sky god Plutarch calls Arueris, is counted among the children of Geb and Nut, a brother of Osiris: Papyrus Bremner-Rhind lists Horus Mekhantenirti, a form usually identified with him. A note in chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead names two Horuses side by side.

Who are Anubis’s parents?

The answer most people know, that Anubis is the son of Osiris and Nephthys, comes from Plutarch, a Greek writer of about 100 CE. In his account Osiris sleeps with Nephthys believing she is Isis; Nephthys abandons the child out of fear of Set, and Isis finds him with the help of dogs and raises him as her guardian (On Isis and Osiris 14, 38).

Older Egyptian texts say less. The Pyramid Texts give Anubis a daughter, Qebehut (Utterance 515, §1180), and one passage calls Imiut, a form linked with Anubis, “son of Hesat”, a cow goddess (Utterance 688, §2080). The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing about 150 years before Plutarch, calls Anubis a son of Osiris without naming a mother (1.18.1). Modern reference works report other parentages, including Bastet and Ra, from texts we have not been able to check. No source we examined makes Set his father, though that claim is repeated widely online.

Ra and Atum: one god or two?

In the theology of Heliopolis they are one creator seen at different times of day. A New Kingdom text has the god say: “I am Khepera in the morning, and Ra [at noon], and Temu in the evening” (Legend of Ra and Isis, in Budge’s translation). The temple of Esna, over a thousand years later, still describes Ra as “Khepri in the morning, Atum in the evening”. That is why the chart shows a single figure, Atum-Ra, rather than placing Ra as Atum’s father or son.

The daughters of Ra on the chart, Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet and Ma’at, are drawn from that one figure with a dashed line. “Daughter of Ra” is a title these goddesses carry rather than a birth story. The clearest account is the Book of the Heavenly Cow, in which Ra sends out his Eye as Hathor to punish mankind, and her rage becomes Sekhmet.

Gods outside the Ennead

Egypt had no single national family tree. Each great temple put its own god at the beginning, and the chart shows these families on the right.

• Memphis: Ptah, the craftsman god, creates by thought and speech. The Shabaka Stone calls him the source of Atum and the whole Ennead. With Sekhmet he is the father of Nefertem, god of the lotus.
• Thebes: Amun, the hidden god, with his wife Mut and their son Khonsu, the moon god. As Amun-Ra he became king of the gods in the New Kingdom.
• Sais and Esna: Neith, one of the oldest goddesses, is a creator in her own right. The Pyramid Texts call the crocodile god Sobek her son, and at Esna she is the mother of Ra himself.
• Elephantine: Khnum, the ram-headed potter who shapes people on his wheel, with the goddesses Satet and Anuket at the First Cataract of the Nile.
• Thoth and Apep: neither has a fixed parentage. Thoth, god of writing, emerges from the heart of Ra in the Esna texts, and Plutarch reports a tradition that Hermes, usually taken to be Thoth, fathered Isis. Apep, the serpent of chaos, forms from Ra’s umbilical cord in the only account of his origin we found, at Esna.

Every god on the chart, with parents and sources

Egyptian gods family tree: common questions

Who is the father of the Egyptian gods?

In the tradition of Heliopolis it is Atum, who created himself out of the primeval water Nun and is the ancestor of the other eight gods of the Ennead. Other cities gave the role to Ptah, Amun or Neith.

Who are the parents of Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys?

Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky. The Pyramid Texts address Geb and Nut as the parents of Osiris (Utterance 219), and Papyrus Bremner-Rhind lists all of them as children of Geb and Nut.

Is Horus the son or the brother of Osiris?

Both, because there are two gods called Horus. Horus son of Isis is Osiris's son and avenger. Horus the Elder is counted among the children of Geb and Nut, which makes him a brother of Osiris.

Who are Anubis's parents?

The best-known answer, Osiris and Nephthys, comes from the Greek writer Plutarch around 100 CE. Older Egyptian texts are less consistent, and one Pyramid Text calls Imiut, a form linked with Anubis, son of the cow goddess Hesat. No source we checked makes Set his father.

Are Ra and Atum the same god?

In Heliopolis, yes: the Pyramid Texts call him Ra-Atum, and one text has the sun god say he is Khepera in the morning, Ra at his height and Temu in the evening.

Is Hathor the daughter or the wife of Ra?

Daughter, in the texts we checked: in the Contendings of Horus and Seth she stands before her father, the Universal Lord, and in the Book of the Heavenly Cow she is the Eye that Ra sends out. Modern references describe her as the consort of Horus at Edfu and Dendera.

How many gods are in the Ennead?

Nine: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, listed in that order in the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 600).

Sources used for this tree

• Pyramid Texts, translated by S. A. B. Mercer (1952), cited by utterance and section.
• Papyrus Bremner-Rhind, British Museum EA 10188, translated by R. O. Faulkner.
• The Shabaka Stone (Memphite Theology), British Museum EA 498, translated by M. Lichtheim.
• Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, translated by F. C. Babbitt (Loeb, 1936).
• Diodorus Siculus, Library of History book 1, translated by C. H. Oldfather (Loeb).
• The Book of the Dead, translated by P. Le Page Renouf and E. Naville, and by E. A. W. Budge.
• The Book of the Heavenly Cow, transliteration and translation by M.-J. Nederhof.
• The temple of Esna, text 206, translated by D. Klotz.
• E. A. W. Budge, Legends of the Gods (1912): the Legend of Ra and Isis, the Hymn to Osiris and the Famine Stela.
• The Contendings of Horus and Seth (Papyrus Chester Beatty I), in an online English translation.
• Modern references: Encyclopaedia Britannica; the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

More mythology family trees and guides

• Greek gods family tree: the same kind of chart for Hesiod's gods, from Chaos to the Olympians.
• Norse gods family tree: Odin, Thor, Loki and the Aesir and Vanir lines.
• Anubis, the jackal god of the dead: embalmer and guide of souls.
• Egyptian gods and their powers: a guide to the wider pantheon.
• Egyptian mythical creatures: the guardians of the afterlife.
• The Sphinx: Egypt's guardian and its riddle.