Nut

noot

egyptian: Nwt

Definition

Nut (Egyptian Nwt) is the Egyptian sky-goddess. She is shown as a long female figure arching over Geb, the earth-god, her star-spangled body forming the canopy of the sky. Every evening she swallows the Sun (Ra) at the western horizon; every morning she gives birth to it again in the east. Temple ceilings and tomb canopies apply the same daily-birth cycle to the Moon, the decans (the star groups that mark time), and the planets.

In Tradition

Egyptologists treat Nut as the great sky-goddess of pharaonic religion: her body is the frame on which the stars and the Sun move. The *Book of Nut* — which Neugebauer and Parker labelled "The Cosmology of Seti I and Ramses IV" — is the foundational astronomical-cosmological text built on her body-as-sky imagery. It survives at the Abydos cenotaph of Sethy I, in the tomb of Ramesses IV, and in the Roman-period Carlsberg I and Ia papyri.

In Practice

On temple ceilings and tomb canopies, Nut's arched figure stretches overhead, with the decans, Sopdet (Sirius), and other star-gods set along her body to show where they stand in the sky. Her body-as-sky gives the visual coordinate system in which the decanal star-clocks, the transit star tables, and the solar and stellar events of the *Book of Nut* are all diagrammed. Egyptologists today take Nut's imagery — the arched figure, the star-patterned body, the swallow-and-birth Sun cycle — as a sign that a tomb or temple ceiling is astronomical in subject.

Historical Origin

Nut is attested from the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts onward, where the dead king rises to her. The *Book of Nut* survives in four sources: the cenotaph of Sethy I at Abydos (Dyn 19, c. 1306-1290 BCE), the tomb of Ramesses IV (KV 2, Dyn 20), and the Carlsberg I and Ia papyri (Roman period). She is treated in Faulkner, *The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts* (Oxford 1969); Neugebauer & Parker, *Egyptian Astronomical Texts Vol I* (Brown 1960); and Wilkinson, *The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt* (2003).

Further Reading

  • R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
  • Otto Neugebauer & Richard A. Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts Vol I
  • Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt