Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) in his Solar Barque, traversing the horizon on a Heavenly Nile, during the day (the time when we can see the world) from east, dawn (left eye) to west, dusk (right eye). From a Book of the Dead dated to 1552–1069 BC, Currently in Louvre, Paris...
The same scene, from another Book of the Dead, dated to 1387–1350 BC, currently in Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Except here instead of Heavenly Nile, the Solar Barque of Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) is traversing the horizon on the Milky Way...
I talked about the (symbolic) link between sun (light) and eye (sight) first in my post "Svetovid"...
Utu, Sun: ð’€ð’Œ“
According to this table, this means god, heaven + day = sun...
Did the god sign originally mean shiny thing? Did the day sign originally mean "eye"?
If so: shiny thing + eye = to see = sun?
Like Slavic Svetovid = light + to see
And then in my post "Sun eyes"...
Skull with amber discs on clay in eye-sockets. Dated to the 4th mill BC. Latvia. One of many amber "sun" disc (obverse (sun cross), reverse (sun rays) and cross-section) made by the same culture...
Rememeber, the Sumerian symbol for sun was Sun + Eye = Sight
Ancient Egyptians believed in a "Heavenly Nile" that mirrored the earthly Nile and flowed through the sky as its divine counterpart. and they linked this celestial Nile with Nut, the Sky Goddess...
She is typically depicted as a naked woman, arched over the earth god Geb...Like on the outer coffin of Butehamun dated to 1076–944 BC and currently in the Turin Museum....
She was believed to stretch across the sky from eastern horizon to western horizon, and that she swallows the sun every evening and gives birth to it every morning...
This is why on this papyrus from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the sun god Ra was depicted as sailing across her body in his solar barque...
Nut was often depicted with stars in her body. There's been suspicion that she might have been in some way linked to the Milky Way, and recent discovery of this depiction of Nut from the outer coffin of Nesitaudjatakhet (I think) has finally confirmed this...
You can see that Nut’s body is covered in stars as well as a thick, undulating black curve that runs from the soles of her feet to the tips of her fingers. This curve, surrounded by stars on both sides, is reminiscent of the Milky Way’s Great Rift...
You can read more about this in the latest study by Dr. Or Graur, Professor of Astrophysics at University of Portsmouth
In which he builds on his previous work, in which he cross-referenced ancient Egyptian texts with astrophysical simulations...
And had concluded that references to Nut found in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of Nut are descriptions of seasonal changes of the sky in correlation with Nut which can only be understood if Nut was in some way linked to Milky Way...
There is (I think) one more proof that Nut was (linked with) Milky Way and Heavenly Nile.
In the Egypt, the brightest part of the Milky Way, its galactic core, is visible towards the south, from Feb to Oct...
During Apr/May/Jun it can be seen in the southeast/south as a bright (roughly) East - West oriented arch stretching across the sky...
Going across and above the Nile river...
During Jul/Aug/Sep it can be seen in the south/southwest, as towering vertical "river" in the sky...
Running parallel to the Nile and touching it far down south/southwest, at it's source...
Which is very interesting because Jul/Aug/Sep is the time of the annual Nile flood, and this is the same time when the Milky Way, the Heavenly Nile truly becomes the reflection of the Terrestrial Nile. Or is it the other way round? As above so below?
In the this paper we can read that in the Book of Nut, the centre of Nut’s torso was marked with "I Akhet when Sothis rises".
The heliacal rising of Sirius, known in Egypt as Sothis or Sopdet in the month of I Akhet, Jul/Aug, marks the beginning of the annual Nile flood...
So it is not surprising then that Nut was one of the Sycamore goddesses (Hathor and Isis, both linked to the annual flood were the other ones)...
Texts from the Book of the Dead directly invoke this aspect: "Hail, thou Sycamore Tree of the Goddess Nut! Give me of the water...which is in thee..."
Here is Nut, standing upright (just like Milky Way during the peak of the annual flood), pouring "the water of life", the flood water of both terrestrial and heavenly Nile, and giving bread (of life) which is the result of the flood which makes agriculture in the Nile valley, Egypt, possible...
I talked about this in my post "Sycamore tree goddess"...
Nut was also directly linked to the annual Nile flood through the celestial cow goddess Mehet-Weret whose name means "Great Flood" and, in some cases, the two were equated...
Nut herself was sometimes depicted as a Heavenly Cow, eating the stars each morning and giving birth to them at twilight...
I talked about celestial cows in my posts "Holy cow", "Cow and calf ivory" and "Inanna in Egypt", in which I explained why is Hathor as Mehet Weret (flood) was depicted as a cow and why she was depicted emerging out of papyris thickets...
But at the time when I wrote these posts, I didn't think of this:
Auroch calving season starts in Apr/May. After calving, cows would begin producing milk, with milk production rising until it reaches peak after 40 - 60 days, with peak lasting 20 days...
That's Jun/Jul, just before Jul/Aug, the beginning of the Akhet season, the season of the annual Flood...The milk of the celestial cow, who was the Milky Way, and the Celestial Nile, filling the Terrestrial Nile and causing the annual flood...
Now this is all super cool, but it gets cooler. Here is something I have stumbled across while reading this article:
"...birds [with] human faces [that speak] in human language [come from] Nut's northwest side to her northeast side, from the primeval darkness, the ḳbḥw of the gods [from] Duat, located on [Nut's] northern side..."
These "birds with human faces" are Ba birds.
I talked about the link between birds as carriers of souls in European and Mesopotamian cultures in several of my articles:
In my post "Nav", in which I talked about how in Slavic mythology, souls of the dead entered birds, like these cranes, who brought them to Irij, paradise. Birds then brought the souls back when they were ready to be reborn...
And in my post "Soul birds" about the Ancient Greek depictions of human souls as birds with human heads...
And in my post "Bes" in which I explained why among the Lake Onega petroglyphs, Russia, made c. 4000BC, the only two petroglyphs which were Christianised were "The Devil" and a swan...
The term "qbḥw", often-abbreviated in writing to only the sign representing a tall water-jug with liquid pouring from it, is generally translated as "cool waters"...
This term was also used as a designation of the celestial vault, because of the belief that the sky is a liquid surface between the atmosphere and outer space, on which the celestial bodies were imagined to navigate during the day and the night...
Additionally, "qbḥw" is used to mean the source of Nile and its inundation, which issued directly from the Nun, the primordial ocean, which lay on the other side of Nut...
Dr Graur interprets the above depiction of the arrival of the Ba birds from Duat as the autumn bird migration into Egypt, which starts in Aug and ends in Nov. During this time the Milky Way orientation flips from northeast - southwest to northwest - southeast...
Dr Graur then goes to say that "the [above] passage, however, notes that the entrance to the Duat is 'on Nut's northern side', not the west, where the Sun sets daily"...
And then he suggests, "this tension may be due to evolving perceptions of the Duat between the era of the Old Kingdom and the era(s) when the Fundamentals (The Book of Nut) and its commentaries were written"...
But I think that this is just another proof that when Ancient Egyptians are talking about Nut, they are indeed talking about the Milky Way. Remember, Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct is when Milky Way assumes vertical, North - South position over Egypt...
Which means that if the Duat is at the end of Nut, then the position of Duat is not fixed, but instead it moves as Nut moves across the sky. And when the autumn bird migration starts in Aug, Duat is indeed North of Nut, because Nut is now pointing North - South...
How cool is this? But there is something even cooler.
There are two bird migration seasons during which millions of birds fly along the river Nile over Egypt:
Northward spring migration to Duat, Feb/Mar - Apr/May
Southward autumn migration from Duat, Aug/Sep - Oct/Nov
The beginning of the spring migration and the end of the autumn migration mark the beginning and the end of the period during which the galactic core, Nut's body, can be seen in the skies over Egypt...
This would explain Nut’s role in the transition of the deceased to the afterlife (as described in spells from the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts)...
Cool? I think so...But there is something even even cooler:
Now on the corner of this map found in in this paper, which depicts the northern portion of the cosmos, the same area where the Book of Nut situates an opening of the Duat, we find the phrase "Qbḥw Ḥrw" meaning "the cool waters/firmament of Horus"...
How cool is this? The North, the direction from which migratory birds come to Egypt in the Autumn following the "Path of Birds", the Milky Way, Celestial Nile as well as Terrestrial Nile is marked as "The part of the sky of Horus"??? Why?
Well...Because of animal calendar markers...Deified animal calendar markers...Of course...I will talk about this soon...I promise...
