Deity · Egyptian · c. 2600 BCE
Nut
Also called Nuit · also recorded as nuith (per Wikidata)
The Egyptian sky-goddess, who swallows the sun each evening and gives birth to it each dawn, so the inside of her body is the night sky the dead travel through.
Well sourced
The sky as a woman arched over the earth on fingers and toes, her body covered in stars, swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it each dawn. That the sky is female and the ground male reverses the arrangement found from Greece to India, and it is worth registering as a fact about how little such patterns are universal. The practical consequence is on the coffin lids: she is painted inside them, so the dead lie within her body and are carried through the night with the sun. The Pyramid Texts state the claim before there were lids to paint it on.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
No temple of her own. She is painted on the underside of coffin lids and tomb ceilings, which is where the sky belongs.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- The Sky
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- No temple of her own. She is painted on the underside of coffin lids and tomb ceilings, which is where the sky belongs.
- Era
- c. 2600 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Heliopolitan Ennead
Traits
- Domain
- The sky, the stars, the daily swallowing and birth of the sun
- Traditional form
- A woman arched over the earth on fingers and toes, her body covered in stars
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Nut, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- transformation2
- material1
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Nut, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 800 years
The sky as a mother who takes the dead king into herself and sets him among the imperishable stars. The image later painted on the inside of coffin lids is here as a spoken claim before there is a lid to paint it on.
Arches over the earth; swallows the sun at evening and bears it again at dawn. Coffin lids are painted with her so the dead lie inside her body.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Nut?
Is Nut the same as Tiamat?
What rank is Nut?
How else is Nut spelled?
What is Nut said to do?
How old is Nut?
Nearest in the corpus
If Nut is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Nut
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Pyramid Texts
Anonymous; carved for the kings and queens of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties · c. 2350–2100 BCE · Old Egyptian
Read The Pyramid Texts in full ↗The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.