The primeval hill that emerged from the waters of chaos was Benben. In the Heliopolitan creation myth, it rose from Nun, the limitless primordial waters, providing the first solid ground in the cosmos.
The creator god Atum settled on Benben and began the acts of creation. Egyptian traditions describe Atum as generating Shu and Tefnut, whose descendants formed the divine family associated with the world’s ordering. Other Egyptian centers developed related versions of the first mound, including Memphis, where the earth god Tatenen personified it.
Benben was more than a mythic landscape. It became associated with the pyramidion, the pointed capstone placed at the top of a pyramid, and with obelisks whose tapered forms evoked the first mound and the rising sun. A common mix-up is to answer Atum or Nun: Atum is the creator deity, while Nun is the primeval watery expanse. Benben is the mound itself.