Obscure Creation Myths

Hesiod was the not the only Greek poet who wrote about the Creation and the origin of the gods and mankind. Hesiod's account is just one kind. The world was created from Chaos first, and then by the World Parents – Gaea (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven).

There are several different versions about the Creation. An older poet, Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, alluded to a different cosmogony from Hesiod. And then there are yet other different cosmogonies that were involved with the Cosmic Egg.

One source involved the goddess Eurynome and the World Serpent Ophion. This source comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, a Hellenistic poet who wrote the Argonautica in the 3rd century BC.

Another tradition about the Creation by the Cosmic Egg involved the gods Phanes or Protogonus and Dionysus/Zagreus. This other tradition came from the poems of the so-called cult of the Orphic Mysteries.

What these two Creation myths have in common is the Cosmic Egg that usually came into existence from void (chaos) or the abyss. The Cosmic Egg, World Egg or whatever other names it might have, it is a common and universal theme in creation myths, not only in these obscure Greek myths but also from other cultures and civilisations. However, the Cosmic Egg is noticeably absent in Hesiod's Theogony.