Deity · Egyptian · c. 2600 BCE
Tefnut
Shu's twin and counterpart in the Egyptian ennead, moisture to his air. When she left Egypt in a rage the land dried out until she was coaxed home.
Well sourced
Moisture, paired with Shu's air as the first division of creation — the two produced by Atum alone, and the parents of earth and sky. She is usually met only through her twin, which is a fact about the sources rather than about her standing: the Pyramid Texts name her in her own right in the ascent material, and her attestation is as old as his. The story attached to her elsewhere is the one where she leaves Egypt in a rage and goes south, the land dries out, and Thoth is sent to talk her home — a goddess whose absence is a drought, brought back by argument rather than by force.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
No independent cult of note; paired with Shu at Leontopolis and otherwise part of the Ennead.
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
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- Goddess of Moisture
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- No independent cult of note; paired with Shu at Leontopolis and otherwise part of the Ennead.
- Era
- c. 2600 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Heliopolitan Ennead
Traits
- Domain
- Moisture, dew, corrosive rain
- Traditional form
- A lion-headed woman
Stats
Known connections
Chain of command
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Tefnut, 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.
- malefic1
- material1
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Tefnut, 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
Named with Shu as the first pair, and — unusually for a goddess this corpus otherwise knows only through her twin — named in her own right in the ascent spells. Her attestation and his are the same age, which is a fact the later material obscures by mentioning her mainly to explain him.
Twin of Shu; the moisture of the world, paired with his air in the first division of creation.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Tefnut?
What rank is Tefnut?
What is Tefnut said to do?
How old is Tefnut?
Nearest in the corpus
If Tefnut 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 Tefnut
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.