General Notes

 
Source:  Ancestry.com.  Jim Young, "update: 10/01/2002", 2002

Chaos is from the Greek word, 'Khaos', meaning "gaping void".There are many explanations as to who or what Chaos is, but mosttheories state that it was the void from which all thingsdeveloped into a distinctive entity, or in which they existed ina confused and amorphous shape before they were separated intogenera. In other words, Chaos is or was "nothingness". Thoughsome ancient writers thought it was
the primary source of all things, other writers tell of Gaia(Earth) being born from Chaos without a mate, along with Erosand Tartarus. Then from Gaia came Uranus (Heaven or Sky) whichgave us Heaven and Earth.

Chaos has been described as the great void of emptiness withinthe universe from which Eros came and it was he who gave divineorder and also perfected all things. In later times it waswritten that Chaos was a confused shapeless mass from which theuniverse was developed into a cosmos, or harmonious order. Forinstance, Hesiod's Theogony says that Erebus and Black Night(Nyx) were born of Chaos, and Ovid,
the Roman writer, described Chaos as an unordered and formlessprimordial mass (its modern meaning). The first Metomorphosesreads, "rather a crude and indigested mass, a lifeless lump,unfashioned and unframed, of jarring seeds and justly Chaosnamed."

Related information: Pronunciation {kay'-ahs}; Etymology:"gaping void".

Source(s):
1.Panaghiotis Christou and Katharini Papastamatis. Gods andHeroes in Greek Mythology.
2.Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins. Ancient Greece a handbook.
3.Geddes and Grosset. Classical Mythology.
4.Elizabeth Hallam. Gods and Goddesses.
5.Ovid. Metomorphoses.
6.Hesiod. Theogony. (123-132)