Goddess of the sky, daughter of Shu, consort of Geb, and mother of Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Nut's star-covered body arches over the earth, swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it again each dawn.
Nut is the sky itself, depicted as a woman whose elongated, star-covered body arches over the reclining earth god Geb, held apart from him by their father Shu. Daughter of Shu and Tefnut, Nut forms, with Geb, the next generation of the Heliopolitan Ennead after Atum, Shu, and Tefnut.
The Birth of the Ennead's Younger Gods
According to a myth recorded by the Greek writer Plutarch in Isis and Osiris and echoed in earlier Egyptian tradition, the sun god Ra, angered to learn that Nut was secretly pregnant by Geb, decreed that she could not give birth on any of the 360 days of the year. Thoth, in a wager or game with the moon god, won enough extra light to create five additional days outside the regular calendar, the epagomenal days. On these five days Nut gave birth in turn to Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, completing the second generation of the Ennead central to Egyptian mythology.
Swallower and Mother of the Sun
Nut's most enduring cosmic role is her daily cycle with the sun: each evening she swallows the solar disc, which travels through her body during the night, and each dawn she gives birth to it anew in the east. This cycle, illustrated in detail in funerary texts such as the Book of Nut and the Book of the Day and Night found on temple and tomb ceilings, made Nut central to Egyptian ideas of rebirth, since the dead hoped to be reborn just as the sun was reborn from her body each day.
Protector of the Dead
Because of this daily rebirth, Nut was frequently painted on the interior of coffin lids, positioned directly over the deceased so that the dead would rest, in effect, within her body, sharing in the sun's own promise of renewal.
Origin Story
Nut was born to Shu and Tefnut and, with her brother and consort Geb, formed the third generation of the Ennead. Ra, angered by her secret pregnancy by Geb, forbade her from giving birth on any day of the calendar year, until Thoth won five extra days through which Nut bore Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.
Both personify the sky as a primordial figure paired with an earth deity, though the genders are reversed between the two traditions
Source Notes
These records lack edition and translator details. Their wording has not been verified as a direct quotation.
They relate that Rhea [Nut], without the knowledge of Helios [Ra], had intercourse with Cronus [Geb], and that Helios, on detecting the intrigue, invoked a curse upon her, that she should not be delivered of her child in any month or any year.
Ancient Texts
Book of the Dead by Various Egyptian priests
c. 1550-50 BCE·Ancient Egyptian (Hieroglyphic)
Nut's protective role over the dead is central to funerary spells and coffin imagery
Recommended translations:E.A. Wallis Budge (1895), Raymond O. Faulkner (1972)
Gods and Pharaohs from Egyptian Mythology by Geraldine Harris
1982·English
Covers the epagomenal-days birth myth and Nut's solar cycle
References & further reading
Editorial notes for deeper study (not a full bibliography).
Plutarch (trans. Frank Cole Babbitt). *Moralia, Volume V: Isis and Osiris* (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1936).
Wilkinson, Richard H. *The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt* (Thames & Hudson, 2003).
Browse representative texts and policies on the Sources page.
Worship & Cult
How Nut was venerated in ancient times
Sacred Temples
•No major independent state temple; honored chiefly through funerary art and coffin decoration
Festivals & Celebrations
The five epagomenal days at year's end were associated with the births of her children
Worship Practices
Nut's presence in Egyptian religion is felt overwhelmingly through funerary art: her image, arched across coffin lids and tomb ceilings, was meant to receive the dead into her body each night just as she received the sun, promising the same daily rebirth to the deceased.
