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Nuit Mogg Morgan (Notes for short presentation at Treadwells, April 9th 2012, Feast for the reception

n of the Book of the Law, organised by Entelechy, Greece) Aleister Crowleys evocation of Nuit in Liber AL focuses our attention on a very unusual and unique Egyptian Goddess. The sky goddess Nwt is one of the oldest deities in the Egyptian pantheon. She is a prehistoric clan deity who later becomes cosmic. The old prehistoric goddesses were of bovine form. Over time they assume anthropomorphic ie: human characteristics. Their function also changed from originator of the cosmos the cosmogenic quality. The sky considered as female is unusual. It many mythologies the sky is a god, i.e. male and its counterpart is the great earth mother, (Neumann, The Great Mother, Lesko et al) Her name literally means The watery one Nw + t Came to signify The Sky but not as a lifeless roof of heaven but as a dynamic entity, creating and destroying (see Hollis 87). She represented the entire sky, night and day as well as large features such as the Milky Way. All the above reflects the high status of women in ancient Egypt. Nwt is : The reassuring image of the great mother to whom we all return at death, the holy mother who can resurrect the dead, the sacred womb from which the dead are reborn these truths maintained from very earliest times right until the end of historic Egypt. (Lesko) The Egyptian Pyramid Texts, possibly some of world oldest religious literature There are many spells for Nwt in PT & CT usually asking her to conceal Osiris from Seth, to take possession of the earth and to install every god who has a bark as an imperishable star in the starry sky that is in Nwt herself. (Spell I ff, 427ff) Nwt is described in the Pyramid Text spell 548 as a long horned celestial cow who suckles the king and takes him to herself in the sky. May Nuit the Great put her hands on him/ she the long of horn, the pendulous of breast. Originally she was the daughter of the first primary couple, Shu & Tefnut, air and moisture. These are quite difficult, amorphous deities. The separation of Nuit & Geb is a later myth, perhaps recording the rise of patriarchy and the

relegation of Nwt to the Sky, leave the earth to a male earth god (Geb)? When you consider one of her forms as cow goddess, one can see connections with goddesses such as Hathor, and also Mehet-Weret (The Great Flood) and most primal of all entities. One of her oldest names/epithets could be the old sky goddess of Nekhen (Citadel of the Hawk) as Bat. Bats name means female soul or female power According to Barbara Lesko, her name signifies the deification of the essence of femininity. One of Nwts popular epithets is Kha-bawes : one with a thousand souls.(Cerny) The largest presentation of Nwt and indeed any deity in Egypt in found at the Dendara in the first hypostyle hall. Dendara is the main cult centre of the cow goddess Hathor. Sycamore is a tree often thought of as sacred to Hathor, also used to make coffins, hence some late images of Nwt show her as a tree goddess. Nwt is at Dendara et al, for she has no particular cult centre of her own. She has always seems to be worshipped in a small chapel as part of another cult never as a whole temple of her own. This does not detract from her greatness. Its because she is chthonic rather than anthropomorphic (having a human form) .. Chthonic means underworld, the realm of the dead. Again this is odd because Nuit is a sky goddess. It all goes to show that Nwt is unique among goddesses. Also unique in that she has the typically skygod role of regulating passage of day and night. The movement of time and space almost always a role given to male deities such as Marduk or Yahweh, or Mithras. Perhaps this does refer the ancient times before the patriarchal religions, a time of great goddesses? Goddess of the sky such as vulture goddess Mwt and Nwt. The female sky is the realm of the dead, the earth is for the living and is ruled by a male god? When the sungod Ra travels across the sky he travels through Nwt. The language is very visceral, deliberately so, winding waterway, nurse canal, field of reeds doors thrown open. Crowley sometimes criticised for fixating on this but it does invoke the original Egyptian vibe. Nwt iconography is unique in Egyptian art, the only goddess shown nude (Lesko). Here nakedness is partly erotic partly to do with birth - she gives birth to all the gods, all the stars, so why no us? In historic times she become part of the so-called mortuary cult almost the personification of the coffin. The coffin is really a stylised womb. Wrapped inside this womb, the deceased waits to be reborn after a long period of incubation. Oh my mother Nuit, stretch yourself over me, that I may be placed amongst the imperishable stars,

which are in you, and that I may not die. 1

PS One important aspect of Nwt, especially in Ramesside era is a connection with the god Seth. One of his most important epithets is Son of Nuit - now of course as mother of all the gods this epithet could be taken by any. Even so it seems to be especially associated with Seth. This relationship is usually downplayed in studies of Nwt or relegated to the eccentricities of the Ramesside Kings, well known for their revival of the Sethian cult. Te Velde says its because of Seths (allegedly) Oedipal nature! But elsewhere we are told Queen Mother is an important role in Egyptian Kingship, so why not in this instance? Seth was often depicted in the presence of Nwt as in the example from Madinat Habu. Interestingly she is shown in her bovine form, a clear reference to ancient times when Nwt was the Heavenly Cow goddess. Her role as mother of Horus and Osiris more significant in post Ramesside. Horus is the Kingly god. Horus is an ideological deity, aimed at establishing the greatest myth of all The myth of divine kingship. References Morgan, M, Wheel of the Year in Ancient Egypt (mandrake) for transcription of the Book of Nuit ritual drama, linked to one of thirteen lunar feasts of the archaic ritual year. Hollis, Susan T Women of Ancient Egypt and the sky goddess Nut Journal of American Folkore 100 (1987) 497 Hollis, Susan T Five Egyptian Goddesses in the third millennium BC KMT 5,4 (1994) 48-49 (R xi 34) Lesko, Barbara (1999) S The Great Goddesses of Egypt, 376 les

NK Tomb of Hattiay at Thebes, the singer of Amon henut-wadjebu coffin Cleveland Museum of Art No 61

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