The Egyptian Goddess
Nut was originally viewed as the Goddess of the Day Sky, which was the place
above the Earth where the clouds were formed. She was known by a variety of
names that included Neuth, Nuit, and Nwt (which is pronounced New-Eat), and it
was from those names that the modern English words, "night," "nocturnal,"
and "equinox," and the French term "la nuit," which means
"the night," were derived.
As time passed, Nut's
influence grew extensively, and she became not only the personification of the
day sky, but the Goddess of the whole Sky, as well. That also made Nut the
Goddess of the Wind, and of everything else that fell between the place where
the sun rose in the East, and where it finally made its descent in the West.
Several myths came
about that describe the manner in which the Sun moved across the sky from the
East to the West. One myth described how Nut, the sky, gave birth to the Sun
every morning. Then, as the day continued, the Sun passed over Nut's body until
he finally reached her mouth at sunset. It was at that point that the Sun
entered Nut's mouth, and traveled through her body until he came forth from her
vagina the following morning, to then repeat the cycle once again.
Alternatively, another
version of the myth describes how the Sun sailed up, over Nut's legs and back,
in the Atet (Matet) boat until high noon. At high noon, the Sun changed boats
and then sailed in the Sektet boat over the rest of Nut's body until sunset
finally arrived.
Because of Nut's strong
connection to the sun's rebirth, she was associated, as well, with the religious
belief in the resurrection of the dead. Her image was frequently used to
decorated the inner lids of coffins from which, it was believed, the dead would
one day be reborn. Since Nut was also seen as a Goddess of the Dead, it was
believed that Pharaohs entered her body when they died, and then traveled
through it until they exited it at the time of their resurrection.
Nut was a member of the
Heliopolitan Ennead, and in her role as the mistress of all heavenly bodies,
she was believed to be reaching across the sky from horizon to horizon,
touching one with her hands and the other with her feet.
Nut was the daughter of
Shu, the God of Air, and Tefnut, the Goddess of Moisture in the Heliopolitan
genealogy. She was also both sister and wife to the God of the Earth, Geb, and
the mother of Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys.
Nut was also a Goddess
of the late historical period of Egypt, and as such, she absorbed a variety of
attributes that had previously belonged to several other Goddesses into
herself. Indeed, it is believed that in earlier times, Nut was a Mother Goddess
that had a great many children, and she has often been confused with several of
the older nature Goddesses, because she either shared many of their
characteristics with them, or those characteristics were merged together within
her, including those of the very ancient Goddess Hathor (Het-Hrt). The sharing
of attributes was actually quite common among many of the Netjer.
Nut has frequently been
portrayed as a woman wearing a vase of water on her head. Most often, however,
she is looked upon as being the roof of the sky or heaven, with her body
stretched out so that her hands and feet are touching the Eastern and Western
horizons, or the four cardinal points, respectively, so that her body arches to
form a semi-circle, with her arms and legs representing the four pillars upon
which the sky rests.
Her father, Shu, holds
Nut up in that position, while her husband, Geb, lies on the ground reclining
on one elbow, with his knees up in the air. It is said that in this position,
Geb depicts the hills and valleys of the land, and that Shu is holding up Nut
with his arms in the same manner that the air was believed to hold up the sky.
This particular
positioning is of great importance, because when Shu raised Nut(the sky) above
Geb (the earth) he brought an end to chaos and, if he was ever to leave that
position for any reason, chaos would return to the world.
In another version of
this myth, Ra asked Nut to raise him into the heavens and remove him from the
world below, because he found it to be quite distasteful. Nut rose upward
carrying Ra on her back, but the higher she rose the dizzier she became. She
would have definitely crashed to the ground had it not been for four Gods who
steadied her legs, while her father, Shu, held up her belly.
These Gods became the
four pillars of the Sky, and Nut's body became the firmament to which Ra then
attached the stars. The combination of the Goddess of the Sky, Nut, the God of
the Air, Shu, and the God of the Earth, Geb, formed the Egyptians' idea of how
their world was designed.
There are several
different versions of the Egyptian Creation Myth, and Nut played an important
role in all of them.
The Creation Myth that
belonged to the Lower Kingdom of Egypt stated that in the beginning, only the
ocean existed. Then, out of an egg that suddenly appeared on the surface of the
ocean, Ra, the God of the Sun appeared. Through his own secretions, Ra had four
children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut
became the atmosphere. Then they stood on Geb who became the earth, and raised
Nut up to become the sky.
Ra was the supreme
ruler of the world, and he ruled over everyone and everything. Geb and Nut
eventually produced two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and
Nephthys. As time passed, and Ra grew old, he finally stepped down and Osiris
succeeded him as the King of the Earth, assisted by Isis, who was both his
sister and his wife.
Set hated Osiris with a
passion, and he eventually murdered his brother, leaving Isis to embalm her
beloved husband's body with the help of the God Anubis, who became the God of
Embalming, and from that time on Osiris became the symbol of good, while Set
became the symbol of evil, thus establishing the two poles of morality, and
fixing them once and for all.
Isis, through working
her powerful magick, was able to resurrect Osiris and he became the King of the
Netherworld and the Kingdom of the Dead. Their son Horus the Elder, eventually
defeated Set in a great battle, and then took his rightful place as the King of
the Earth.
The Upper Kingdom
Creation Myth is slightly different from that of the Lower Kingdom. It tells
how, in the beginning, there was only Nun, the primal ocean of chaos, that
contained the very beginnings of everything else that would ever be. It was
from those waters that Ra appeared and, completely alone, he parthenogencally
gave birth to Tefnut and Shu. Shu, the God of Air, and Tefnut, the Goddess of
Moisture, then gave birth to Geb and Nut, the God of the Earth and the Goddess
of the Sky. That was how the physical universe was created, and then mankind
was created from Ra's tears.
It is believed that Geb
and Nut were born in a sexual embrace, and that Ra, who did not approve of
their incest, ordered Shu to forcibly interposed himself between them, thus
separating the Earth from Sky. The myth in which the earth and the sky are
married, and then become separated, is known throughout the world as a
universal myth, having a wide assortment of variations.
One example of this is
the Greek Creation Myth. The Goddess Gaea was the Earth and Uranus, who was the
Heavens, was both her husband and her son. It was Gaea who made the decision to
separate herself from Uranus, and she did so with the help of her youngest son
Chronos, who castrated his own father, thereby separating the Earth from the
Sky.
Even though Ra had
forbidden Geb and Nut to continue in their eternal sexual embrace, they married
anyway, and their refusal to separate caused Ra to become so furious with them
that he ordered their father, Shu, to separate them, which he did. Ra then placed
a curse upon Nut, to keep her from giving birth to a child on any given day in
any given year. Unfortunately, though, a major problem existed. Nut was already
pregnant with Geb's children and she did not know what to do.
It was then that Nut
went to her dear friend Thoth, the God of Wisdom, who also happened to be Ra's
son, and asked him for his help. Amazingly, Thoth actually did find a way to
get around Ra's curse. First, Thoth went to visit Khonsu, the God of the Moon,
and challenged him to a game of draughts. The longer they played the game, the
larger the stakes became. In the end, it was Thoth who won, and what Khonsu had
bet, which Thoth had won, was an amount of the element of light, which amount
was exactly enough to create five additional days. Thoth placed those five days
between the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, thereby creating
five days that did not fall upon any given day in any given year. Indeed, due
to Thoth's great wisdom, Ra's curse was both upheld and defeated, and Nut was
able to give birth to her children on those five days that once did not exist.
Nut was never actually
personified in a truly human form. Rather, she was always depicted as a
midnight blue or black skinned woman, arched above her father, Shu and husband,
Geb, and was either covered with or imbedded with stars. Often, the Moon is
seen resting in her genitals, while the Milky Way is leaking from her hanging
breasts. While Nut may never have taken on a truly human form, each and every
depiction of her shows her as a uniquely feminine and sexual Goddess. While
Nut's love for Geb was so great, that she had to forceably be kept apart from
him for all eternity, the story of that love will always remain a tale of
eternal love and desire, just as the earth and the sky will forever seem to
meet when you glance at the far horizon.
Ancient Egypt: Light of
the World (2-vols) - Gerald Massey
Stolen Legacy - George
G.M. James
Osiris and the Egyptian
Ressurection - E. A. Wallis Budge
Egyptian Religion -
Rundle T. Clark
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