Nun

About Nun

Nun is the Egyptian personification of the primordial waters, the dark, formless, boundless ocean of chaos that existed before creation and from which the ordered world arose. In the beginning, before the sky and the earth, before the gods and the living, there was only Nun, the inert watery abyss without limit, light, or form, in which all the potential of creation lay latent and unmade. From these waters the creator emerged and the first mound of earth rose, and on it the work of creation began; yet Nun did not vanish with the making of the world but persists around and beneath it, the cosmic ocean that surrounds the bubble of ordered creation on every side, above the sky and below the earth, the chaos that the world holds back and into which it could dissolve again.

Nun is at once a place and a person. As a place, Nun is the primeval waters, the watery abyss of the precosmic state and the cosmic ocean that surrounds the world; as a person, Nun is a god, the personification of these waters, depicted as a man, often with a beard, standing in the waters and sometimes raising the solar bark or the first mound on his upraised arms. In the Hermopolitan cosmogony, Nun is one of the eight gods of the Ogdoad, the primordial deities arranged in four male-female pairs who embody the qualities of the chaos before the world; Nun and his consort Naunet are the pair who personify the primordial waters, the formless ocean from which creation arose. In Hermopolitan iconography the male members of the Ogdoad, including Nun, are frog-headed, and the female members, including Naunet, are snake-headed, the creatures of the slime and the water signifying the precosmic chaos.

Nun is attested from the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) onward as the primordial waters from which the creator and the world emerged, and the conception of Nun runs through the whole of Egyptian religious thought. The creator-gods of the various cosmogonies — Atum at Heliopolis, who arose from Nun upon the first mound, the Ogdoad at Hermopolis from whose interaction in the waters the first mound and the sun arose, Ptah at Memphis identified with Nun as the watery source — all emerge from or are identified with the primordial waters. The sun-god rose from Nun at the first dawn and rises from him again each morning, the daily sunrise a repetition of the first emergence from the waters of chaos. The dead, too, pass through the waters in their renewal, and the Nile flood, the annual inundation that renews the land, was understood as a manifestation of the waters of Nun, the chaos-waters bringing the renewal of life. Nun is thus the source and the surrounding of the world, the chaos before creation and the ocean around it, the formless potential from which all order arose and into which it could return. The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (BM EA 10188, c. 312 BCE) preserves a first-person creation account in which the sun-god describes himself arising alone within the waters of Nun, finding no place to stand in the formless flood, before raising the first mound and bringing the world into being.

Mythology

The narrative of Nun is the story of the primordial waters from which the world arose — the formless abyss before creation, the emergence of the creator and the first mound, and the persistence of the chaos-waters around and beneath the ordered world.

In the beginning, the Egyptians held, there was no sky and no earth, no gods and no living things, no light and no form. There was only Nun, the primordial waters, the dark, inert, boundless ocean of chaos that existed before creation. These waters were without limit, without light, without form, and within them lay latent all the potential of creation, unmade and unrealized. Nun was the precosmic state, the watery abyss out of which the world would arise, the chaos that preceded all order. The texts describe this state in terms of what it lacked: there was no above and no below, no distinction of land and water, no place to stand, only the dark formless waters extending without bound.

From these waters the world arose. In the cosmogony of Heliopolis, the creator Atum, self-generated within the waters of Nun, emerged from the abyss and rose upon the first mound of earth, the primeval hill that lifted itself out of the waters, and on this first dry land the work of creation began. Atum brought forth the first gods, the air and the moisture, and from them descended the sky and the earth and the whole order of the world. The emergence of Atum from Nun and the rising of the first mound from the waters is the foundational act of creation, the appearance of the first order, the first light, the first dry land, out of the formless dark waters.

In the cosmogony of Hermopolis, the emergence of the world from the waters is told differently. Here the primordial waters are personified as the eight gods of the Ogdoad, arranged in four male-female pairs, who embody the qualities of the precosmic chaos: Nun and Naunet the formless waters, Heh and Hauhet the boundlessness, Kek and Kauket the darkness, and Amun and Amaunet the hiddenness. These eight gods existed together in the dark waters before creation, and from their interaction the first mound of earth arose at Hermopolis and the sun was born, in some versions from a cosmic egg laid upon the mound, in others from a lotus that rose from the waters and opened to reveal the young sun-god. Nun, as the pair of the formless waters, is the foundation of this Ogdoad, the watery chaos in which the other qualities of the precosmic state are arranged.

The sun-god's emergence from Nun is repeated each day. The Egyptians saw the daily sunrise as a repetition of the first emergence of the sun from the primordial waters; each morning the sun-god rises from Nun as he rose at the first dawn, the daily renewal of the sun an echo of the original creation. The solar bark, in its nightly journey through the underworld, passes through the waters of Nun, and at dawn the bark and the sun-god rise from the waters, lifted up, in some renderings, by the arms of Nun himself, the personified waters raising the solar bark into the sky. The image of Nun, the bearded god standing in the waters, raising the solar bark on his upraised arms, renders the daily birth of the sun from the primordial waters.

Nun did not vanish with the making of the world. The ordered cosmos, the bubble of creation with its sky and earth and the space of air between, exists within the surrounding waters of Nun, which persist around and beneath it on every side. Above the sky and below the earth, beyond the edges of the world, the chaos-waters remain, the formless ocean that the ordered world holds back and into which it could dissolve again. The Egyptians held that the world is surrounded by the waters of Nun, and that at the end of time, in some conceptions, the world would return to the primordial waters, the order of creation dissolving back into the formless chaos from which it arose, leaving only Atum and Osiris in the form of serpents in the endless waters. Nun is thus both the beginning and the potential end, the source from which the world arose and the chaos into which it could return.

The waters of Nun were felt in the life of Egypt. The annual inundation of the Nile, the flood that covered the land and renewed its fertility, was understood as a manifestation of the waters of Nun, the chaos-waters bringing the renewal of life; the receding of the flood and the emergence of the fertile black land from the waters repeated, each year, the emergence of the first mound from the primordial ocean. The groundwater beneath the earth, the source of springs and wells, was the waters of Nun beneath the world. In the renewal of the dead, too, the waters of Nun played a part, the dead passing through the waters in their rebirth as the sun passes through Nun each night. Thus the primordial waters, the chaos before creation, were present in the living world, in the flood and the groundwater and the renewal of life, the formless source from which all order arose and which surrounds and underlies the ordered world. Nun is the deepest stratum of the Egyptian cosmos, the watery chaos before and around creation, the abyss from which the world emerged and into which it could return.

Symbols & Iconography

Nun's symbolism is the symbolism of the primordial chaos, the formless waters before creation, the abyss from which all order arose and around which it persists. As the dark, boundless, inert ocean that existed before the world, Nun embodies the precosmic state, the chaos that precedes all order, the formless potential out of which creation came. The waters of Nun are at once the source of the world and the chaos that threatens it, the beginning of creation and the abyss into which it could dissolve, and this double character, source and threat, is at the heart of Nun's symbolism.

The waters themselves are the central symbol. Water, formless and shapeless, taking the form of whatever contains it, is the natural symbol of the precosmic chaos, the state without form or distinction before the making of the world. The dark waters of Nun, without light or limit, render the chaos before creation as the formless ocean, and the emergence of the first mound and the first light from these waters renders the making of order as the rising of form and light from the formless dark. The symbolism of the waters of chaos ties Nun to the deepest Egyptian conception of the precosmic state and the act of creation.

The first mound rising from the waters is the symbol of the emergence of order from chaos, the appearance of the first dry land, the first form, the first place to stand, out of the formless waters. The primeval hill that lifted itself out of Nun is the foundation of the world, the first order to arise from the chaos, and its emergence is repeated each year in the rising of the fertile land from the receding flood and each morning in the rising of the sun from the waters. The mound rising from Nun symbolizes the perpetual emergence of order, life, and light from the formless chaos.

Nun's persistence around and beneath the ordered world gives him a symbolism of the chaos that surrounds and underlies creation. The waters of Nun, which did not vanish with the making of the wo

The frog-headed form of Nun in the Ogdoad, the creature of the slime and the water, and the image of the bearded god raising the solar bark from the waters, complete the symbolism of the primordial waters as the formless source and surrounding of the ordered world, the chaos from which all order arose and which renews and threatens the world. As a place, Nun is the primeval waters, the watery abyss of the precosmic state and the cosmic ocean that surrounds the world; as a person, Nun is a god, the personification of these waters, depicted as a man, often with a beard, standing in the waters and sometimes raising the solar bark or the first mound on his upraised arms.

Worship Practices

The shared conception of the precosmic waters gave Egyptian creation theology a common foundation across its different local systems.

Nun's place in the Hermopolitan cosmogony gave him a specific theological role in the Ogdoad, the group of eight primordial gods worshipped at Hermopolis (Egyptian Khmun, 'the city of the eight'). The Hermopolitan theology, preserved mostly in the temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period at Edfu and Esna and in earlier fragments, made Nun a member of the Ogdoad and the primordial waters from which the first mound and the sun arose at Hermopolis.

The conception of Nun as the cosmic waters surrounding the world shaped the Egyptian understanding of the structure of the cosmos. This connection tied the cosmological conception of the primordial waters to the agricultural and seasonal rhythms of Egyptian life, and made Nun present in the yearly renewal of the land.

Nun was not the focus of a major cult of the kind enjoyed by Osiris, Isis, or Amun; his role was cosmological and theological rather than cultic. He appears throughout Egyptian religious texts as the primordial waters and the source of creation, and as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad, but he was not the object of a great temple cult. This reflects his character as the precosmic chaos and the cosmic waters rather than a god whose myths and worship drove the religious life of a city. Yet the conception of Nun, the primordial waters, was among the most pervasive and fundamental ideas of Egyptian religion, present in every cosmogony and in the daily renewal of the sun and the annual renewal of the land, persisting across three thousand years of Egyptian thought from the Pyramid Texts to the temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period..

Sacred Texts

Pyramid Texts (c. 2375–2181 BCE; ed. R.O. Faulkner, Oxford, 1969; James P. Allen, SBL, 2005) contain the earliest written references to Nun. Utterance 571 describes Atum arising from Nun upon the first mound before the sky and the earth existed, establishing the foundational creation image in which the world emerges from the primordial waters. Utterance 600 invokes Atum as the one who arose in Heliopolis, having brought forth Shu and Tefnut from the waters, with Nun as the watery source from which the creator emerged. Utterances 301 and 484 invoke the formless waters as the precosmic state preceding the gods, attesting Nun's presence in the oldest stratum of Egyptian religious literature.

The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (c. 312 BCE; BM EA 10188; Ptolemaic period) contains the most explicit first-person creation account of the sun-god, in which the creator describes himself finding no place to stand in the formless waters of Nun before raising the first mound and beginning creation. This text provides the richest description of the precosmic state as undifferentiated water and is the primary source for the experience of Nun from the creator's perspective; partially translated by R.O. Faulkner, The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 22–24, 1933–37).

Coffin Texts (Middle Kingdom, c. 2055–1650 BCE; trans. R.O. Faulkner, Aris & Phillips, 3 vols, 1973–78; hieroglyphic ed. Adriaan de Buck, OIP, 7 vols, 1935–61) attest Nun in multiple spells dealing with the cosmogony and the structure of the cosmos. Spell 76 invokes the precosmic waters and the emergence of Shu from Atum within the watery chaos. The Hermopolitan cosmogony, preserved in Coffin Text Spells 307–321, describes the eight gods of the Ogdoad interacting within the waters and generating the first mound and the sun, with Nun and Naunet the foundational pair of the formless waters.

Temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period at Edfu (Ptolemaic, dedicated to Horus) and Esna (Roman period) preserve the fullest surviving texts of the Hermopolitan cosmogony, naming Nun and the other members of the Ogdoad and describing their interaction in the precosmic waters. The Edfu texts include accounts of the Ogdoad worshipping at the primeval site at Heliopolis after the world was created, and the Esna texts describe the cosmogony with Nun as the primordial waters. Translated and discussed by Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. III (UC Press, 1980), pp. 101–110.

The Book of the Dead (New Kingdom onward; ed. Faulkner, BM Press, 1985) Spell 17 gives a cosmological framework including Atum arising from Nun, with the commentary clarifying the identification of Nun as the primordial waters. Spell 175 includes Atum's late meditation in which the god describes returning to Nun at the end of time in the form of a serpent, the cosmos dissolving back into the primordial waters; this is a key text for the Egyptian conception of cosmic endings. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica Book I (Loeb, trans. C.H. Oldfather, 1933), sections 10–12, describes the Egyptian account of creation from the primordial waters in rationalized form.

Significance

Nun's significance lies in his place as the primordial waters of chaos from which the Egyptian world arose, the formless ocean before creation that underlies all the Egyptian cosmogonies and persists around and beneath the ordered world. As the dark, boundless, inert abyss that existed before the sky and the earth, the gods and the living, Nun is the precosmic state, the chaos that precedes all order, the formless source from which the world emerged. The conception of Nun underlies the whole of Egyptian creation theology, at Heliopolis, Hermopolis, and Memphis, and is the common foundation of the various accounts of how the world arose from the waters of chaos.

Nun matters above all for the Egyptian conception of creation as the emergence of order from chaos. The rising of the first mound from the waters of Nun, the emergence of the creator and the first light from the formless dark, the appearance of the first dry land and the first place to stand, render the making of the world as the emergence of order from the primordial chaos. This conception of creation as emergence from the waters, rather than creation from nothing, is fundamental to Egyptian cosmogony, and Nun, the primordial waters, is the chaos from which the world emerged.

Nun is significant for the Egyptian conception of the structure and the fragility of the cosmos. The persistence of the waters of Nun around and beneath the ordered world, above the sky and below the earth, places the chaos at the boundaries of the world and underlies the Egyptian sense of the ordered cosmos as an island of form maintained against the surrounding chaos. The conception that the world could dissolve again into the waters of Nun, returning at the end of time to the primordial chaos, expresses the Egyptian sense of the fragility of order and the perpetual threat of the surrounding chaos.

Nun's manifestation in the Nile flood gives him a significance for the renewal of life and the rhythms of Egyptian existence. The annual inundation, understood as a manifestation of the waters of Nun, brought the renewal of fertility, the chaos-waters covering the land and receding to leave the fertile earth, repeating the emergence of the first mound from the primordial ocean. This connection tied the cosmological conception of the primordial waters to the agricultural life of Egypt and made the chaos-waters a source of renewal as well as a threat.

For the broader study of Egyptian religion, Nun is significant as the foundation of Egyptian creation theology, the primordial waters underlying all the cosmogonies, and as a witness to the Egyptian conception of the precosmic chaos and the emergence of order. His place as the common foundation of the Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan, and Memphite cosmogonies, his role as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad, and his manifestation in the daily renewal of the sun and the annual renewal of the land made him among the most pervasive and fundamental conceptions of Egyptian religion. The primordial waters from which the world arose and around which it persists remain central to any understanding of the Egyptian cosmos.

Connections

The cosmogony of Hermopolis is the theological system in which Nun is a member of the Ogdoad, the pair of the primordial waters with his consort Naunet, from whose interaction with the other pairs the first mound and the sun arose at Hermopolis. Nun's place in the Ogdoad fixes his role as the formless waters among the qualities of the precosmic chaos.

The Ogdoad of Hermopolis is the group of eight primordial gods to which Nun belongs, the four male-female pairs personifying the precosmic chaos: Nun and Naunet the waters, Heh and Hauhet the boundlessness, Kek and Kauket the darkness, and Amun and Amaunet the hiddenness. Nun and Naunet, the pair of the formless waters, are the foundation of this Ogdoad.

The cosmogony of Heliopolis tells how the creator Atum arose from the waters of Nun upon the first mound, the emergence of the creator and the first dry land from the primordial waters. Nun is the watery abyss from which the Heliopolitan creation began. The cosmogony of Memphis identifies the creator Ptah with Nun as the watery source of creation.

The Atum entry addresses the creator of Heliopolis who arose from Nun, and the Ra entry covers the sun-god who rose from Nun at the first dawn and rises from him each morning, the daily sunrise a repetition of the first emergence from the primordial waters. The Ptah entry covers the Memphite creator identified with the primordial waters.

The Pyramid Texts contain the earliest references to Nun as the primordial waters from which the creator and the world emerged, and the conception of Nun runs through the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, and the temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period.

Among the sibling deities of this batch, Heh is Nun's fellow member of the Ogdoad, the god of boundlessness, and Amun, once Nun's fellow in the waters of chaos, rose from the Ogdoad to become the king of the gods. Mehet-Weret, the celestial cow called the Great Flood, and Tatenen, the Memphite god of the emerging primeval land, share with Nun the imagery of the primordial waters and the emergence of the world. The connections of Nun thus run through all the Egyptian cosmogonies, from the Ogdoad of Hermopolis through the creators of Heliopolis and Memphis to the daily renewal of the sun and the annual renewal of the land, the primordial waters underlying the whole Egyptian conception of creation.

Further Reading