Nut

Mythology of Nut

Picture: The outstretched figure of Nut was carvedon the lids of some royal sarcophagi to unite with the deceased. 19th Dynasty. Sarcophagus of Merenptah, reused by Psusennes I, from Tanis Egyptian Museum.Cairo.

The goddess Nut was primarily the personification of the vault of the heavens, though her character included many different aspects within this role. As a member of the great Ennead of Heliopolis she was the daughter of Shu and Tefnut - the Egyptian gods of air and moistures who were the first offspring of the primeval demiurge Atum; and she herself represented the firmament which separated the earth from the encircling waters of chaos out of which the world had been created. Nut thus fulfilled an important cosmogonic role - she was not only the great sky whose 'laughter' was the thunder, and whose 'tears' were the rain, but she was also the 'mother' of the heavenly bodies who were believed to enter her mouth and emerge again from her womb each day. The sun was thus said to travel through the body of the goddess during the night hours and the stars travelled through her during the day. This cosmic imagery was the basis of the assertion that the goddess was 'the female pig who eats her piglets'. Nut was nevertheless viewed in a positive manner, and the myth of the birth of her children was recorded by Plutarch who states that, fearing the usurpation of his own position, the sun god placed a curse on the sky goddess stopping her giving birth on any day of the 360-day year. The god Hermes (Thoth) came to Nut's aid, however, and won five extra days for the year enabling the goddess to bear her children.

Picture: The goddess Nut with wings outstretched in a protective pose adorns this pectoral of Tutankhamun.18th Dynasty. Egyptian Museum. Cairo.

Several scholars have suggested that Nut may originally have represented the Milky Way, as Spell 176 of the Book of the Dead refers to this broad band of stars which crosses the night sky and the following spell begins with an invocation of Nut, and some representations of the Ramessid Period show stars around the figure of the goddess as well as on her body. There is astronomical evidence which may support the equation. Ronald Wells has shown that in the predawn sky at winter solstice in predynastic Egypt and the Milky Way would have looked remarkably like a stretched out figure with arms and legs touching the horizons in exactly the manner in which the goddess was often later depicted. Furthermore, at the time of the winter solstice the sun would have risen in the area of the goddess's figurer - her pudendum - from which it would be imagined to be born, just as nine months earlier, at the spring equinox, the sun would have set in the position of the goddess' head - suggesting it was being swallowed.

Nut also became inextricably associated with the concept of resurrection in Egyptian funerary beliefs, and the dead were believed to become stars in the body of the goddess. According to Heliopolitan theology Nut united with her brother Geb, the earth god, to produce Osiris and those Egyptian gods associated with him in the great mythic cycle of resurrection. In this way the priests of Heliopolis were able to incorporate the important netherworld god into their own solar religion and at the same time to strengthen the association of Nut with the concept of resurrection and rebirth. Nut is therefore an important deity in the Pyramid Texts, appearing there almost 100 times. She fulfilled a central role in the resurrection of the deceased king both as heavenly cow (PT 1344) - and as a funerary goddess who addresses the king as his 'mother Nut in her name of "sarcophagus"... in her name of "Coffin" and.... in her name of "tomb"' (PT 616). In the later Coffin Texts similar ideas are elaborated for the non-royal deceased. Not surprisingly, in later times the roles of Nut and Hathor - also a cow deity and funerary goddess - were sometimes conflated. Hathor was thus sometimes viewed as a sky goddess and Nut sometimes viewed as a sky goddess and Nut sometimes replaces Hathor as the goddess of the divine sycamore tree who nourishes the deceased, although the connection of Nut herself with the coffin may have led to her association with wood and thus the sycamore tree.

Iconography of Nut

Picture: The figure of Nut from the second gilded shrine of Tutankhamun. 18th Dynasty. Egyptian Museum. Cairo.

In most of her representations Nut was depicted in anthropomorphic form (often as a goddess identified by the circular water pot which she wore on her head, sometimes with the addition of the ceiling-like sky sign, as the hieroglyphic symbol for her name). She is often shown in profile, bending naked over theearth god Geb and sometimes supported by Shu, the god of the air, with her arms and legs bent down so that she touches the horizons with her hands and feet. Because of the conventions of Egyptian art in which the goddess's arms and legs bent down so that she touches the horizons with her hands and feet. Because of the conventions of Egyptian art in which the goddess's arms and legs seem to be held together, in these representations she appears as a narrow bridge across the sky (as would certainly be appropriate if she were equated with the Milky Way), though it is possible that she was imagined to cover the whole vault of heaven with her hands and feet respectively placed at the four cardinal points. On the ceiling of the burial chamber of the tomb of Ramesses VI in the Valley of the Kings, the goddess is depicted in two colossal profile images painted back to back separately representing the day and night sky.

Nut was also depicted en face on the undersides of the lids of coffins and sarcophagi - frequently showing the solar disk in the process of being swallowed or reborn. In these representations the depiction of the goddess was placed over the deceased so that a kind of union was achieved, and the coffin itself symbolically became the body of the goddess from whom the deceased would be reborn. The tomb of Tutankhamun may contain an interesting visual allusion to this idea for the young kind is shown there with the goddess Nut directly after the 'opening of the mouth' ceremony and before he goes before the god Osiris, as though his depiction with Nut represents the transitional time in the coffin between burial and the afterlife. In the private tombs of Thebes and in vignettes in the Book of the Dead, Nut is also depicted as a goddess rising from the trunk of the divine sycamore to proffer life-sustaining water and nourishment in the afterlife.

The goddess could also be depicted in zoomorphic form as the sky cow or sky sow. In her bovine form her four hooves were the cardinal points, and the sun god and stars are often shown sailing across the underside of her body. In this form the divine sky cow was also often shown supported by the air god Shu who stands with upraised arms beneath her, and by Heh gods who support her legs which are the 'pillars of the sky'. Because Nut could also be regarded as a female pig, she was also represented in the form of a sow, sometimes shown with her young.

Picture: Nut, 'Mistress of Heaven', offers purifying water - in the form of wave - like lines which issue from her hands - to the deceased king on his entrance to the afterlife.18th Dynasty. Tomb of Tutankhamun, Valley of the Kings.Western Thebes.

Worship of Nut

As with most cosmic Egyptian gods, Nut had no cult or temples of her own, though she was depicted in astronomical ceilings and representations in many ancient Egyptian temples and tombs. Her place in popular religion, while probably very limited, is perhaps nevertheless seen in amulets of the sow, sometimes with her piglets, which appear in burials from the Third Intermediate Period onwards. Some of these smulets may have been worn in life and could stress the goddess's power in the area of fertility or as a deity of rebirth. Picture: Nut swallows the disk of the sun which travels through her body to be reborn the following day. The figures before the goddess tow the barque of sun towards her. Detail, Book of the Day. 20th Dynasty. Tomb of Ramesses VI, Valley of the Kings, western Thebes.