ts temple was called the "Abode of
the Five" down to a late period in Egyptian history, and its prince,
who was the hereditary high priest of Thot, reckoned as the first of his
official titles that of "Great One of the House of the Five."

The four couples who had helped Atumu were identified with the four
auxiliary gods of Thot, and changed the council of Five into a Great
Hermopolitan Ennead, but at the cost of strange metamorphoses. However
artificially they had been grouped about Atumu, they had all preserved
such distinctive characteristics as prevented their being confounded one
with another. When the universe which they had helped to build up
was finally seen to be the result of various operations demanding a
considerable manifestation of physical energy, each god was required to
preserve the individuality necessary for the production of such effects
as were expected of him. They could not have existed and carried on
their work without conforming to the ordinary conditions of humanity;
being born one of another, they were bound to have paired with living
goddesses as capable of bringing forth their children as they were of
begetting them. On the other hand, the four auxiliary gods of Hermopolis
exercised but one means of action--the voice. Having themselves come
forth from the master's mouth, it was by voice that they created and
perpetuated the world. Apparently they could have done without goddesses
had marriage not been imposed upon them by their identification with the
corresponding gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives
had but a show of life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods
worked after the manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his
form and reigned along with him as so many baboons. When associated with
the lord of Hermopolis, the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the
character and the appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they
were merged. They were often represented as eight baboons surrounding
the supreme baboon, or as four pairs of gods and goddesses without
either characteristic attributes or features; or, finally, as four pairs
of gods and goddesses, the gods being, as far as we are able to judge,
the couple Nu-Nuit answers to Shu-Tafnuit; Hahu-Hehit to Sibu and Nuifc;
Kaku-Kakit to Osiris and Isis; Ninu-Ninit to Sit and Nephthys. There
was seldom any occasion to invoke them separately; they were addressed
collectively as the Eight--_Khmunu_-