Study uses Egyptian mythology as blueprint for ancient heavens
Astrophysicist Or Gruar uses observatory simulators to map the galaxy onto sky-goddess Nut’s body in potential Egyptology breakthrough
The ancient Egyptians may have identified their sky goddess Nut with the Milky Way, according to an article in the latest edition of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, published April 2.
Using two advanced astronomical simulation programs, Or Graur, an associate professor of astrophysics at Britain’s Portsmouth University, discovered that the galaxy, as seen from Egypt in the last two millennia BCE, traces the goddess’s body as described in classic Egyptian cosmological texts, some of them found in burial sites.
Graur also showed that the Egyptians’ association of Nut with bird migration and the afterlife was consistent with the role attributed to the Milky Way by other contemporary cultures in Africa and beyond.
“My research shows how combining disciplines can offer new insights into ancient beliefs, and it highlights how astronomy connects humanity across cultures, geography, and time,” Graur told the science news site Phys.org.
“This paper is an exciting start to a larger project to catalog and study the multicultural mythology of the Milky Way,” said Graur, who was born in the United States and completed his doctorate in physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University in 2013.
According to the paper’s abstract, “The Milky Way’s name and role in ancient Egyptian culture remains unclear,” although the astronomy-keen Egyptians could have clearly observed the galaxy in the unpolluted sky.
“One suggestion is that the Milky Way may have been a celestial depiction of the sky goddess Nut,” an assertion that Graur examined using an “interdisciplinary method.”
In his two-part study, Graur said he used “astronomical simulations of the ancient Egyptian night sky with primary Egyptian sources to map the goddess Nut onto the Milky Way.” The second half of the study puts the Egyptian Nut mythology into context with similar north African legends.
Later in the paper, Graur suggests that the Hebrew Bible includes a reference to Nut in its description of the patriarch Jacob’s mummification. In Genesis 50, Jacob is said to be embalmed — hanoot, in Hebrew — which Graur speculates to be a cultural reference to the sky goddess. (Hebrew scholars associate the biblical Hebrew root of hanoot with that of “wheat.”)
Graur has no formal training in Egyptology.
Several texts from the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis describe sky-goddess Nut (pronounced Noot) as the sister and consort of earth-god Geb, whom Nut protects from encroaching waters. Their father, Shu, stands between them, representing the atmosphere.
The Egyptians, who innovated the 365-day solar calendar as well as the 24-hour division of the day, give Nut a central role in their solar circle: the sun, deified in Re — Nut and Geb’s son — sails across the waters held aloft by Nut’s body, ferried by Nut herself in the form of a cow.
At day’s end, according to the paper, Nut swallows the sun, and rebirths him the following morning.
Nut is depicted as an arched woman who embodies the heavens. Her head is said to coincide with the western horizon, while her groin coincides with the eastern horizon.
Nut’s arms lie at 45-degree angles to her torso. In the summer, they are perpendicular to the Milky Way; in the winter, they are parallel to the galaxy.
Simulating the night sky, Gruar discovered that the Milky Way’s summertime orientation aligns with Nut’s backbone as depicted in the ancient texts, and the galaxy’s wintertime orientation aligns with her arms’ position in the winter.
“This is the most suggestive piece of evidence for a connection between Nut and the Galaxy,” Graur concluded.
The BBC's Sky at Night Magazine interviewed me for a podcast about my new book. It's now live at: https://t.co/AKiy11xlyK@mitpress #SUPERNOVA #astronomy #podcast
— Or Graur (@OrGraur) February 22, 2022
“[W]hile writing a chapter on the Milky Way for a new book on galaxies, I stumbled across the image of Nut and showed it to my daughters,” Graur wrote in Scientific American, saying his daughters were “entranced” by the daily birth of the sun.
“But was Nut truly the Milky Way, as some authorities suspected? Or was the link between the two nothing more than wishful thinking, a thrilling idea allowed to run wild with no concrete evidence to ground it?” continued Gruar.
“If I wanted to include Nut in my book, I had to find out.”
