Nut (goddess)
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| Nut (nwt) in hieroglyphs |
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In the Ennead mythology, Nut (alternatively spelled Nuit, Newet, and Neuth), was the goddess of the sky[2]. Her name means Night. Some of the titles of Nut were Coverer of the Sky, She Who Protects, Mistress of All, and She Who Holds a Thousand Souls. Originally she was the goddess of the daytime sky, but in later times she was known simply as the sky goddess. Nut was said to be covered in stars touching the cardinal points of her body. Her headdress was the hieroglyphic of part of her name, a pot, which may also symbolize the uterus. The ancient Egyptians said that every woman was a nutrit, a little goddess.
Nut was the goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, a symbol of resurrection and rebirth. According to the Egyptians, the heavenly bodies—such as the sun—would be swallowed, traverse the inside of her belly through the night, and be reborn out of her uterus at dawn. A sacred symbol of Nut was the ladder, used by Osiris to enter her heavenly skies. This ladder-symbol was called maqet and was placed in tombs to protect the deceased, and to invoke the aid of the deity of the dead. She was the sky goddess, in contrast to most other mythologies, which usually evolve into a sky father associated with an earth mother.
Nut was thought to be the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in the world. She was pictured as a woman arched on her toes and fingertips over the earth—her body, a star-filled sky. Nut’s fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions.
Sometimes Nut appeared 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).
Nut was seen as a friend and protector of the dead, who appealed to her as a child appeals to its mother: “O my Mother Nut, stretch Yourself over me, that I may be placed among the imperishable stars which are in You, and that I may not die.” Nut was thought to draw the dead into her star-filled sky, and refresh them with food and wine: “I am Nut, and I have come so that I may enfold and protect you from all things evil.” She was often painted on the inside lid of the sarcophagus, protecting the deceased. The vault of tombs often were painted dark blue with many stars as a representation of Nut.
The Book of the Dead says, “Hail, thou Sycamore Tree of the Goddess Nut! Give me of the water and of the air which is in thee. I embrace that throne which is in Unu, and I keep guard over the Egg of Nekek-ur. It flourisheth, and I flourish; it liveth, and I live; it snuffeth the air, and I snuff the air, I the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, in peace.”
In a later myth Nut becomes a daughter of Shu, god of the air, and Tefnut, goddess of moistness. She was paired with Geb, the earth, with whom she had four children: Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. In another myth, she originally lay eternally, having sexual intercourse with Geb, but Shu (the air) later separated them, and it was said that if she ever returned to that position, chaos would reign (because the world was that space that existed between the two). Sometimes Nut was considered to be the daughter and wife of Ra, at other times she was identified as his mother, who gave birth to him each morning (the pink dawn sky being the blood of this birth).
[edit] Notes
- ^ The hieroglyphics (top right) spell nwt or nut. Egyptians never wrote Nuit. (Collier and Manley p. 155)
- ^ Mythology, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Principal Myths and Religions of the World, by Richard Cavendish ISBN 1-84056-070-3, 1998
[edit] References
- Collier, Mark and Manley, Bill. How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Revised Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
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