Nut

The Egyptian Goddess of the Sky

For the ancient Egyptians, the sky itself could be a goddess. Nut was depicted as a woman arching over the earth, her enormous body forming the heavens. Her arms and legs could define the boundaries of the sky, while stars appeared beneath or across her body. The Egyptians also imagined celestial lakes, marshes, and waterways, with Nut's arms associated with the northeast and her feet with the southwest, corresponding to points on the horizon where the Sun rose and set.

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Every evening, Nut swallowed the Sun as it disappeared below the western horizon. During the night, the Sun traveled through her body before she gave birth to it again at dawn. Stars, too, could disappear from the night sky for part of the year. The Egyptians understood these stars as descending into the Duat, the realm of the dead, where the “Unwearying Stars” helped pull the Sun's boat through the underworld. Their eventual return to the morning sky was understood as a kind of birth. These journeys of the Sun and stars were depicted in the Books of the Sky during the New Kingdom.