About the Ben-ben Stone

The Ben-ben Stone,

Pyramidion of Amenemhat III from the Black Pyramid,

Twelfth Dynasty. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Picture by Jon Bodsworth.

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‘Ben-ben is the Egyptian word carrying the connotation of ‘outflow’; the pyramid like sacred stone or pillar that came to be the cult object of Ra in the Heliopolitan temple represents the primordial ben-ben, i.e., the noetic ‘stone’, or the primeval hill, which emerges from the apophatic abyss of Nun as the first projection of Atum (‘All’ and ‘Nothing), as the seed of the neo-platonic kosmos noetos: ‘Atum-Khepera, you culminate as hill, you raise yourself up as the bennu-bird from the ben-ben stone in the abode of the Phoenix at Heliopolis.‘ (PT.1652).’

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‘The wondrous bennu-bird, sitting on the top of the ben-ben, is said to come from the Isle of Fire having filled its body with the demiurgic heka-power and may be compared to the self-created original solar Word (Logos) which brings light into darkness; this bird of light is the primeval hypostasis of Ra, that is the light-like intelligible Being; Heliopolis represents the symbolic centre of the manifested world, of all theophanies.’

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