The word 'cosmology', which comes from two Greek words whose combined form means 'the study of order', is the name of the science that concerns itself with the "creation" of the universe. And although the word 'creation' would seem to imply an agent of creation, a creator; when modern cosmology expresses the origin of the universe in terms of creation, this is always done without even the hint of a creator. The Big Bang, for example, which is the modern scientific explanation of the creation of the universe, is assumed not to have involved a creator. In contrast, most traditional descriptions of creation assume a creater, as in the Jewish holy writ, which says that the god Yahweh is the agent of creation. The original Hebrew phrase, "bara", which is always translated as "he created", says literally that "he cut or carved" the World, and both of these terms necessarily imply an agent of creation. In addition to creation, which is clearly a form of production and thus may be artificial, our remote ancestors viewed the origin of the universe as often as not in terms of the more natural generation, of which birth is an example. Nevertheless, the term 'creation', which may mean the artificial production of the world (again requiring an agent of production), may also be natural, for the root of the word 'creation', 'cre-', which is cognate with the root-form 'cres', as in 'crescent', means merely 'to grow'. Hence, the "creation" may just as likely have been a "natural growing" as that of an artificial manufacturing.
The earliest recorded versions of ancient cosmologies that are yet extant, those of Sumeria and Egypt, are very similar. This however is not surprising, since both are directly descended from the earliest cosmological myth that found widespread acceptance in the neolithic world, the myth of the Cosmic Egg. The Cosmic Egg is an idea that comes down from the most remote antiquity, and thus the details of its origins are obscure and uncertain. Related to this Egg cosmology are the many different versions of the myths of the Celestial Serpent and the Celestial Bird, often combined in the symbol of the Winged Serpent or SnakeBird. Both of these symbols go back to the earliest ideas about the formation of the world as expressed in the art of the earliest artifacts of human creativity from neolithic times—hewn stones, clay pots, and petroglyphs. Among these we find examples of the expression of these earliest religious symbols, the antiquity of which is testified to by not only their existence as the oldest artifacts, but also by their ubiquitous distribution. Not only do we find them all over the Old World—in Europe, Asia, and Africa, with their most fully developed form being found in Egypt—but in every quarter of the New World as well. The most highly developed form of the SnakeBird in the New World is without question the myth of Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent of the Toltecs and Aztecs.