KEMETIC COSMIC VIEW - THE BOOK OF NUT

This book itself is pictured in nature, and resembles to some degree the Book of the Heavenly Cow. There are brief captions that seems to overwhelmed by the huge image of the sky.



We have a few examples of the Book of Nut. There are exanples in the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos and the tomb of Ramheesses IV, through the latter is abbrieviated.



The only other evidence of this book is a commentary written in the Roman Period, and an incomplete version in the tomb of Mutirdis (TT410) dating from the 26 Dynasty. The longer appended text that accompanies the captions was reproduced in the Papyrus Carlsberg in Demotic script.




It was Jean-Francois Champollion and Hippolito Rosellini who published the earliest drawing of the representation of the sky goddess.
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These, and some investigations that followed, were all from the versibauer on found in the tomb (KV2) of Ramesses IV, for the Osireion in Abydos, for it had not been discovered at that point.


The commentary from the Roman Period was published by H.O. Lange and Otto Neugebauer in 1940.
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Nut is shown as a woman supported by God Shu who holds her body aloft. Interesting, in the tomb of Seti I, she is oriented correctly for the swallowing and birth of the sun, but not in tomb of Ramesses IV.



Other motifs within the scene includes several sun disks, a winged scarab in front of the knees of the goddess, a vulture atop the heraldic plant (lotus flower)of Upper Egypt behind her legs, and nest of migratory birds next to her arms. The captions on the scenes are also accompanied by a longer appended text.

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The book itself is intended to provide both a topography of the sky and greater understanding of the sun's daily course. The brief captions augment this understanding and are distributed over the entire scene, describing its detail as well as the actions of the sun god, the decans and other divine beings.



O. Neugebaum set out and coded the various captions within the depiction. For example; Text L provides a definition of the "Far regions of the sky", that are in the primeval darkness and waters, not touched by the sun.



They have no bounaries or cardinal directions. A list of decans that may orginate in the Middle Kingdom are provided in Text S through X. These captions tells us the decans work and their periodic invisibilitey, including thier transit through the meridian.


The text labeled Dd through FFf explains migratory birds and their nests.

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In the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos, we find a text reporting a quarrel between Geb and Nut because she is swallowing their children, the stars.


The dispute is settled by their father, Shu who advises that Nut gives birth to the stars each time so they might live.




Hotep*