| Nut | |
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Other Names |
Coverer of the Sky, She Who Protects, Mistress of All, She Who Holds a Thousand Souls |
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First Appearance |
Egyptian Mythology |
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Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
Sky goddess Nut and Geb being separated by Shu.
Nut, also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water-pot sign that identifies her.
Nut is a daughter of Shu and Tefnut. Her brother and husband is Geb. She had four children – Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys – to which is added Horus in a Graeco-Egyptian version of the myth of Nut and Geb. She is considered one of the oldest deities among the Egyptian pantheon, with her origin being found on the creation story of Heliopolis. She was originally the goddess of the nighttime sky, but eventually became referred to as simply the sky goddess. Her headdress was the hieroglyph of part of her name, a pot, which may also symbolize the uterus. Mostly depicted in nude human form, Nut was also sometimes depicted in the form of a cow whose great body formed the sky and heavens, a sycamore tree, or as a giant sow, suckling many piglets (representing the stars). Some scholars suggested that the Egyptians may have seen the Milky Way as a celestial depiction of Nut.
Nut and her brother, Geb, may be considered enigmas in the world of mythology. In direct contrast to most other mythologies which usually develop a sky father associated with an Earth mother (or Mother Nature), she personified the sky and he the Earth.
Nut appears in the creation myth of Heliopolis which involves several goddesses who play important roles: Tefnut (Tefenet) is a personification of moisture, who mated with Shu (Air) and then gave birth to Sky as the goddess Nut, who mated with her brother Earth, as Geb. From the union of Geb and Nut came, among others, the most popular of Egyptian goddesses, Isis, the mother of Horus, whose story is central to that of her brother-husband, the resurrection god Osiris. Osiris is killed by his brother Set and scattered over the Earth in 14 pieces, which Isis gathers up and puts back together.
In his De Iside et Osiride, the Greek philosopher Plutarch, who lived in the first century CE, presents a narrative likely inspired by real Egyptian mythology regarding the birth of Nut's children. In this work, Plutarch draws parallels between Egyptian and Greek deities.The early Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge argued that Plutarch's description of Ancient Egyptian beliefs incorporated elements that appear to be either imaginative embellishments or are based on misinformation. The account describes how Rhea, secretly consorting with Saturn, was cursed by the sun-god Helios to never give birth during any day of the year. Mercury, enamored with Rhea, intervened by gambling with the moon-goddess Selene and winning a seventieth portion of her moonlight, creating five additional days. These days were added to the 360-day calendar and became known in Egypt as the "Epact" or intercalary days, celebrated as the birthdays of the gods.
Plutarch likely equated Rhea with the Egyptian goddess Nut. She had five children on each of the five days: Osiris, later ruler of the gods and then god of the dead; Horus the Elder,Set, (equated with Typhon) Isis and Nephthys. The first two children were fathered by Helios, Isis by Mercury, and Set and Nephthys by Saturn. The third of the additional days, considered Sets birthday, was deemed to be an omen of bad luck.According to Plutarch, Set married Nephthys, while Isis and Osiris married even before birth, and conceived Horus the Elder in some traditions.The Ancient Egyptian texts barely reference this episode, offering only a subtle hint that it was Nut's father, not her husband as Plutarch proposed, who was responsible for the pregnancy.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Nut from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.