Нут: Египетская богиня неба и звёзд

Egyptian goddess of the sky
the Egyptian sky goddess

Nut /'//n//U//t/ (, ), also known by various other transcriptions, is the goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, mothers, astronomy, and the universe in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star covered nude woman arching over the Earth, or as a cow. She was depicted wearing the water pot sign (nw) that identifies her.

The pronunciation of ancient Egyptian is uncertain because vowels were long omitted from its writing, although her name often includes the unpronounced determinative hieroglyph for "sky". Her name Nwt, itself also meaning "Sky", is usually transcribed as "Nut" but also sometimes appears in older sources as Nunut, Nent, and Nuit. She also appears in the hieroglyphic record by a number of epithets, not all of which are understood.

Nut is a daughter of Shu and Tefnut. Her brother and husband is Geb. She had four childrenOsiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthysto which is added Horus in a Graeco Egyptian version of the myth of Nut and Geb. She is considered one of the oldest deities among the Egyptian pantheon,

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. Nut and her brother, Geb, may be considered enigmas in the world of mythology. In direct contrast to most other mythologies which usually develop a sky father associated with an Earth mother (or Mother Nature), she personified the sky and he the Earth. Nut appears in the creation myth of Heliopolis which involves several goddesses who play important roles: Tefnut (Tefenet) is a personification of moisture, who mated with Shu (Air) and then gave birth to Sky as the goddess Nut, who mated with her brother Earth, as Geb. From the union of Geb and Nut came, among others, the most popular of Egyptian goddesses, Isis, the mother of Horus, whose story is central to that of her brother husband, the resurrection god Osiris. Osiris is killed by his brother Set and scattered over the Earth in 14 pieces, which Isis gathers up and puts back together.

The Book of Nut is a modern title of what was known in ancient times as The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars. This is an important collection of ancient Egyptian astronomical texts, perhaps the earliest of several other such texts, going back at least to 2,000 BC. Nut, being the sky goddess, plays the primary role in the Book of Nut. The text also tells about various other sky and Earth deities, such as the star deities and the decans deities. The cycles of the stars and planets, as well as time keeping are also covered in the book.