Egyptian Heliopolis
The Egyptian god Atum, was the chief deity of the city Iunu (Heliopolis), who was worshipped in the primary temple, known as Per-Aat.Iunu was also the original source of the worship of the Ennead pantheon. Although in later times, as Horus gained in prominence, worship focused on the syncretic solar deity Ra-harakhty.
The main cult of Ra—(or Re) was in Heliopolis, however the High Priests of Ra are not as well documented as the high priests of other deities. The Al-Masalla area of the Al-Matariyyah district contains the underground tombs of High Priests of Ra of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345 BCE—2181 BCE), which were found in the southeast corner of the great Temple of Ra—Atum archaeological site.
During the Amarna Period, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced monotheistic worship of Aton, the deified solar disc, built here a temple named Wetjes Aton. Blocks from this temple were later used to build the city walls of medieval Cairo and can be seen in some of the city gates. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of the god Ra, had its centre here, and possessed a formal burial ground north of the city.
Egyptian mythology, and later Greco—Roman mythology, said that the phoenix (Bennu), after rising from the ashes of its predecessor, would bring the ashes to the altar of the sun god in Heliopolis.
Greek era
Alexander the Great, on his march from Pelusium to Memphis, halted at this city (Arrian, iii. 1); and, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 23), Baalbek, or the Syrian Heliopolis, was a priest-colony from its Egyptian namesake.
The temple of Ra was said to have been, to a special degree, a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by
