Nut
Goddess of the sky, whose star-covered body arches over the earth.
Nut stretches across the heavens above her husband Geb, the earth. Each evening she swallows the sun and each morning gives birth to it again. She is the mother of Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys, and her image was painted inside coffin lids and tomb ceilings to embrace the dead.
Symbols
Starry body arched over the earth Cow Ladder
In the ancient sources
Egyptian texts
- Pyramid Texts Nut is asked to spread herself over the dead king, who is her son and will rise among the stars of her body.
- Book of Nut (cenotaph of Seti I, Abydos) The sun enters her mouth at evening, travels through her body in the night and is born from her at dawn.
Her image painted inside coffin lids put the dead person in her embrace, under the stars.
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris
- Isis and Osiris 12 The Sun forbids her to give birth on any day of the year; Hermes (Thoth) wins five extra days from the Moon at draughts, and on them she bears Osiris, the elder Horus, Typhon (Set), Isis and Nephthys.
Plutarch calls Nut by the name of the Greek goddess Rhea.
Cross-checked against these texts and records, in public-domain or freely available versions where they exist. Line, section and chapter numbers follow the standard editions, so a particular translation may differ slightly.
Correspondences Explore all
- Element
- Air
- Stones & metals
- Lapis lazuli
- Animals
- Cow
- Tarot
- The Star
These mix ancient attributes with modern associations from contemporary pagan and magical practice; the modern ones weren't part of her original worship.