The ancient Egyptians were known for their religious beliefs and their astronomical knowledge of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Ra was the god of the king star and Jonsu (which means ‘traveler’) was the god of the only natural satellite of the Earth. But already in the Middle Kingdom, about 4,000 years ago, there were texts describing the five worlds observable with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
What until now was not at all clear was what role the Milky Way played in Egyptian religion and culture. Hence, researchers at the University of Portsmouth set out to unravel this mystery. Their hypothesis is that the sky goddess, Nut, was actually a representation of the galaxy in which our solar system is located.
“I came across Nut when I was writing a book about galaxies and researching the mythology of the Milky Way. I took my daughters to a museum and they were enchanted by this image of an arched woman and kept asking to hear stories about her,” remembers Astrophysics professor Or Graur.
The sky goddess often appears in Egyptian texts depicted as a star-studded woman arching over her twin brother and husband, the earth god Geb. She protects the planet from being inundated by the encroaching waters of the void and plays a key role in the solar cycle, swallowing the Sun at dusk and giving it life at dawn.
As Graur explains in an article published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, in winter the Milky Way highlighted Nut’s outstretched arms, while in summer it traced his torso (or spine) across the heavens. His head and groin, moreover, are firmly associated with the western and eastern horizons, respectively.
Some of the most common depictions of the sky goddess show her covered in stars, held aloft by her father Shu (god of atmosphere and light) and arched over Geb. On the left, the rising sun (the falcon-headed god Ra) rises up Nut’s legs. To the right, the setting sun navigates its arms into the outstretched arms of Osiris, who during the night regenerates the sun in the underworld.
The astrophysicist from the University of Portsmouth decided to combine astronomy and Egyptology to do a double analysis of the goddess and see if she could really be linked to the Milky Way. That’s why he analyzed ancient texts – including the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts and the Book of Nut – and performed astronomical simulations of the night sky of ancient Egypt.
Their conclusion is that even the roles attributed to Nut as a deity coincide with those of other cultures, showing similarities in how different societies interpret the Milky Way.
“Nut’s role in the transition of the deceased to the afterlife and its connection to the annual migration of birds are consistent with how other civilizations understand the Milky Way. For example, as a spirit path between different peoples in North and Central America or as a Bird Path in Finland and the Baltic countries,” explains Or Graur.
“My research shows how combining disciplines can offer new insights into ancient beliefs and highlights how astronomy connects humanity across cultures, geographies and time. “This paper is an exciting start to a larger project to catalog and study the multicultural mythology of the Milky Way,” she concludes.
