Isis wept so bitterly for murdered Osiris that her tears swelled the Nile, and the annual flood that Hapi brought from his cavern was said to begin with the goddess's grief.
Khnum controls the cavern at Elephantine from which Hapi releases the annual flood, and when the ram-headed god withheld the waters for seven years, famine consumed Egypt until Pharaoh Djoser placated him with offerings.
Hapi draws the annual flood from Nun, the primordial waters that lie beneath the earth, each inundation an eruption of the cosmic ocean through the cavern at Elephantine.
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