Nut (goddess)

In Egyptian mythology, Nuit or Nut was the sky goddess, in contrast to most other mythologies, which usually have a sky father. Nuit is a daughter of Shu god of the air and Tefnut. She was one of the Ennead. The sun god Re entered her mouth after the sun set in the evening and was reborn from her vulva the next morning. She also swallowed and rebirthed the stars. The eternal mother.

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.” Nut was the goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, a symbol of resurrection and rebirth. According to the ancient Egyptians, the heavenly bodies would enter her mouth, traverse her skies and be reborn with dawn out of her womb. 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 god of the dead.

Nut's colours are the indigo of the night sky and the silver lights of the stars.

She was a goddess of death, and her image is on the inside of most sarcophagi. The pharaoh entered her body after death and was later resurrected. Nut was the coffin of the heavens.

In art, Nuit is depicted as a woman wearing no clothes, covered with stars and supported by Shu; opposite her (the sky), is her husband, Seb(the Earth). Wife and sister of Geb, she was the mother of Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris and Isis were their first born male and female children and the original governors of Egypt. Their younger siblings are Seth, the god of destruction, and Nephthys.

As goddess of the sky, she is often depicted with her body stretched out over the earth as a protective mother shielding earth's mortals. Geb, the earth god, is often shown reclining below her with his phallus elevated to the sky. Nut is the firmament that protects the world from the amorphous chaos beyond and as such maintains all that is in existence. She is mother and protector, associated with the cow, a source of nurture and nourishment, indicating great maternal strength and benign wisdom. The ancient Egyptians said that every woman was a “nutrit” (little goddess.)

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. She was often painted on the inside lid of the sarcophagus, protecting the deceased; the vault of the tomb was often painted dark blue with stars as a representation of Nut. Her headdress was the hieroglyphic of part of her name, a pot (which may also be a womb.) 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, which represent the stars.