Shu

About Shu

Shu is the Egyptian god of the air, the light, and the space between the sky and the earth, the firstborn of the creator Atum, the twin and consort of the moisture-goddess Tefnut, and the father of the sky-goddess Nut and the earth-god Geb. In the cosmogony of Heliopolis, Shu and Tefnut are the first pair of gods produced by Atum, and from them descend the whole Ennead of nine gods; Shu and Tefnut are the air and the moisture, the first two elements drawn from the creator, and through their children Geb and Nut the structure of the cosmos takes shape. Shu's name is connected with the words for emptiness, dryness, and the void of air, and he personifies the atmosphere, the breath of life, and the light that fills the space between the heavens and the ground.

Shu's defining act is the separation of the sky from the earth. His children Geb and Nut were born locked in a close embrace, the earth and the sky pressed together with no space between them, and Shu came between them and lifted Nut up from Geb, raising the sky on high and holding it aloft, making the space of air and light in which the world exists. In Egyptian art Shu is depicted as a man standing between the reclining earth-god and the arched sky-goddess, his arms raised to support the body of Nut, the air-god holding the sky above the earth. This image of Shu lifting the sky is among the foundational cosmological emblems of Egyptian thought, the act by which the habitable world was made.

Shu's mythology is preserved above all in the Coffin Texts (c. 2100-1700 BCE), Spells 75-83, the second-longest single cycle in that corpus, which are devoted to Shu and present the air-god speaking in the first person as the breath of life and the firstborn of the creator. In these spells Shu declares himself the life-breath that Atum exhaled, the air in every nostril, the one who fills the space between the sky and the earth, and the dead person identifies with Shu to share in his life-giving power. Shu is also a god of light, the bright air of day, and in the kingship-of-the-gods tradition he is the second divine king of Egypt, succeeding Ra and reigning before passing the throne to his son Geb. Together with Tefnut, Shu forms the pair sometimes called the Two Lions (Ruty), the twin lion-deities who guard the horizon where the sun rises, and in this leonine form Shu and Tefnut are associated with the eastern and western horizons and the passage of the sun. Shu's role as the air that holds up the sky made him a god of the support of the cosmos, the one whose continued effort keeps the heavens from falling back upon the earth. The four pillars or supports of the sky were associated with Shu, and the Egyptians held that should the air-god fail in his task, the sky would collapse upon the earth and the world would end. In the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (c. 312 BCE), the first-person creation account of the sun-god describes the production of Shu and Tefnut as the first stage of creation, the air and the moisture drawn from the creator before the world could take shape.

Mythology

The narrative of Shu is the story of the air-god in the Heliopolitan cosmogony — his production from the creator, his separation of the sky from the earth, his reign as the second divine king, and his role as the breath of life that fills the space of the world.

In the cosmogony of Heliopolis, the creator Atum arose alone from the primordial waters of Nun upon the first mound of earth, and from himself he brought forth the first pair of gods. The texts give the act in vivid terms: Atum, who had no consort, produced Shu and Tefnut from his own body, in one tradition by sneezing out Shu and spitting out Tefnut, the names echoing the sounds of the sneeze and the spit, in another tradition by his own hand. Shu the air and Tefnut the moisture were thus the firstborn of the creator, the first two elements drawn from Atum, and with them the work of creation began. Atum embraced his two children, and the texts speak of his ka, his life-force, passing into them, so that the air and the moisture carried the creative power of the god.

From Shu and Tefnut were born the next generation, Geb the earth and Nut the sky, and with them the great act of Shu's mythology took place. Geb and Nut were born locked in a close embrace, the earth and the sky pressed together with no space between them, and in this union there was no room for the world to exist. So Shu, the air, came between his two children and lifted Nut up from Geb, raising the sky on high above the earth and holding it aloft. Into the space between them, the realm of air and light that Shu himself fills, the world was set, and the sun could cross the sky and the gods and the living could move upon the earth. Shu stands between the earth and the sky, his arms raised to support the body of Nut, the air-god whose continued effort holds the heavens above the ground and keeps them from falling back upon the earth. This separation of the sky and the earth by the air is the foundational act by which the habitable world was made, and Shu is the god who performs it and who sustains it.

Shu's own theology is set out in the Coffin Texts, Spells 75 to 83, the cycle devoted to the air-god, in which Shu speaks in the first person as the breath of life and the firstborn of the creator. In these spells Shu declares himself the life-breath that Atum exhaled, the air that Atum breathed out from his nostrils, the one who came into being from the limbs of the creator. He is the air in every nostril, the breath that gives life to all living things, and the space of light and air that fills the world between the sky and the earth. The dead person who recites these spells identifies with Shu, taking on the air-god's nature as the breath of life, so as to breathe in the afterlife and share in the life-giving power of the air. Shu is thus not only the cosmological air that holds up the sky but the breath of life in every creature, the atmosphere that sustains all living things.

In the kingship-of-the-gods tradition, Shu is the second divine king of Egypt. The throne passed from Ra, the first king, to Shu, who reigned over the gods and the world before passing the throne in turn to his son Geb. Some texts tell of troubles in Shu's reign, of the children of chaos who rose against him, of the air-god's weariness, and of his eventual withdrawal and the succession of Geb. The Book of the Heavenly Cow and other texts preserve fragments of this royal mythology of Shu, the air-god as king in the divine dynasty that ran from Ra through Shu and Geb to Osiris and Horus.

Shu and Tefnut together form the pair sometimes called the Two Lions, Ruty, the twin lion-deities who guard the horizon where the sun rises and sets. In this leonine form Shu and Tefnut are associated with the eastern and western horizons, the gates of the sun, and the passage of the sun across the sky that the space of air makes possible. The image of the twin lions, facing the horizons, ties Shu and Tefnut to the daily journey of the sun through the air and the light that the air-god fills.

Shu's role as the air that holds up the sky gave him a place in the Egyptian conception of the support of the cosmos. The four pillars or supports of the sky, the props that hold the heavens above the earth, were associated with Shu, the air-god who keeps the sky aloft, and the continued existence of the world depended on Shu's holding the sky in its place. Should Shu fail, the sky would fall back upon the earth and the world would end. Thus the air-god, born of the creator's breath, who separated the sky from the earth and holds the heavens aloft, who is the breath of life in every nostril and the second king of the gods, stands at the foundation of the Egyptian cosmos, the air and the light that fill the space of the world and sustain all that lives within it.

Symbols & Iconography

Shu's symbolism is the symbolism of the air, the light, and the space between the sky and the earth, the atmosphere that fills the world and the breath that gives life. As the god who separates the sky from the earth and holds the heavens aloft, Shu embodies the space of the world, the realm of air and light in which all things exist, made when the air came between the earth and the sky and lifted the heavens on high. His image, the man standing between the reclining earth-god and the arched sky-goddess, his arms raised to support the body of Nut, is among the foundational cosmological emblems of Egyptian thought, rendering the air as the support of the cosmos.

The breath of life is Shu's central symbol. As the air in every nostril, the breath that Atum exhaled and that gives life to all living things, Shu embodies the life-giving power of the air, the breath without which nothing lives. The Coffin Text spells in which Shu speaks as the breath of life, and in which the dead identify with him to breathe in the afterlife, make the air-god the symbol of the breath of life itself, the atmosphere that sustains all creatures. This symbolism ties Shu to the most intimate fact of life, the breath in the body, and makes him the god of the air that all living things draw in.

Shu's role as the support of the sky gives him a symbolism of cosmic order and stability. The air-god who holds the heavens above the earth, whose continued effort keeps the sky from falling back upon the ground, embodies the maintenance of the order of the world, the keeping of the sky in its place. The four pillars or supports of the sky, associated with Shu, render this symbolism in cosmological terms, the props that hold the heavens aloft as the air-god holds them. Should Shu fail, the world would end, and so the air-god is the symbol of the continued support that keeps the cosmos in being.

Shu's association with light gives him a solar symbolism. As the bright air of day, the light that fills the

His image, the man standing between the reclining earth-god and the arched sky-goddess, his arms raised to support the body of Nut, is among the foundational cosmological emblems of Egyptian thought, rendering the air as the support of the cosmos.

The breath of life is Shu's central symbol. The light of day is Shu's element as much as the air, and the two are joined in his nature as the god of the bright atmosphere.

Shu's leonine symbolism, as one of the Two Lions paired with Tefnut, adds the imagery of the powerful guardian to that of the air. Through these images Shu is at once the air that holds up the sky, the breath of life in every nostril, the support of the cosmic order, the bright light of day, and the leonine guardian of the horizon, the god of the space and the light that fill the world. In Egyptian art Shu is depicted as a man standing between the reclining earth-god and the arched sky-goddess, his arms raised to support the body of Nut, the air-god holding the sky above the earth. This image of Shu lifting the sky is among the foundational cosmological emblems of Egyptian thought, the act by which the habitable world was made.

Shu's mythology is preserved above all in the Coffin Texts (c.

Worship Practices

The Book of the Heavenly Cow and other New Kingdom texts preserve this royal mythology of Shu, tying the air-god to the ideology of kingship.

Like the other cosmological gods of the Ennead, Shu did not have a major independent cult center of the kind enjoyed by Osiris, Isis, or Amun. His role was chiefly cosmological and theological rather than cultic; he appears throughout Egyptian religious texts and art as the air-god and the support of the sky, but he was not the focus of a great temple cult. This reflects his character as a fixed structure of the cosmos, the air that fills the space of the world, rather than a god whose myths and worship drove the religious life of a city. Shu was worshipped at Heliopolis as part of the Ennead and at Leontopolis, where he and Tefnut were venerated as the Two Lions, but his presence was felt above all in the cosmological texts and the funerary literature.

Shu's iconography, the air-god standing between the earth and the sky with his arms raised to support the body of Nut, became one of the recurring cosmological images of Egyptian art, appearing on coffins, papyri, and temple walls throughout pharaonic history and into the Greco-Roman period. The temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period continued to depict and invoke Shu, attesting the persistence of the air-god and his cosmological role across three thousand years of Egyptian religion..

Sacred Texts

Pyramid Texts (c. 2375–2181 BCE; ed. R.O. Faulkner, Oxford, 1969; James P. Allen, SBL, 2005) contain the earliest attestations of Shu. Utterance 600 is the key cosmogonic text, listing the Ennead and describing Atum bringing forth Shu and Tefnut, establishing Shu's place as the firstborn of the creator. Utterance 301 invokes Shu and Tefnut among the primordial gods. Utterances 222 and 365 describe the dead king ascending to the sky on Shu, the air that carries the king upward, establishing the funerary function of the air-god from the oldest period. The image of the sky lifted on Shu is present throughout the utterances dealing with the sky-goddess Nut.

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) contain the most extensive single cycle devoted to Shu: Spells 75–83, the second-longest continuous cycle in the corpus. These spells present Shu speaking in the first person as the air that Atum exhaled, the breath in every nostril, the firstborn of the creator who came forth from the limbs of Atum. Spell 80 gives the full account of the separation of Geb and Nut by Shu, the air-god's defining cosmological act, and the dead person identifies with Shu in these spells to share in his life-giving power. The Shu cycle is translated by Faulkner, vol. I, and provides the primary theological account of the air-god.

The Book of the Heavenly Cow (New Kingdom; best preserved version in the tomb of Seti I, Valley of the Kings, KV17, c. 1290 BCE; trans. Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell, 1999) includes a passage describing Shu's role in the mythology of the divine kingship, where the sun-god commands Shu to support Nut and the sky, tying the eternal sky-separation to the royal mythology. The text also preserves aspects of Shu's reign as the second divine king.

The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (c. 312 BCE; BM EA 10188; Ptolemaic period) contains a first-person creation account of the sun-god in which the production of Shu and Tefnut from Atum is described in direct speech: the creator describes sneezing out Shu and spitting out Tefnut from his own body. The papyrus provides the most explicit account of the physical production of the first gods from the creator, and Shu's origin is central to it; translated in part by Raymond Faulkner, The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (JEA, 1936–38).

Book of the Dead (New Kingdom onward; ed. Faulkner, BM Press, 1985) Spell 17 gives the cosmological background including the Heliopolitan creation and the descent from Atum, within which Shu's position as firstborn and separator of sky and earth is implied. The standard cosmological vignettes in the papyrus of Ani (BM EA 10470) and other funerary papyri depict Shu standing between Geb and Nut, his arms raised to support the sky. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica Book I (Loeb, trans. C.H. Oldfather, 1933), section 13, identifies the Egyptian air-god (as Shu) within his rationalized account of the Egyptian divine succession.

Significance

Shu's significance lies in his place at the foundation of the Egyptian cosmos as the god of the air, the firstborn of the creator, and the one who separated the sky from the earth to make the habitable world. In the Heliopolitan cosmogony, Shu and Tefnut are the first pair of gods produced by Atum, the air and the moisture drawn from the creator, and from them descend the sky and the earth and the whole Ennead. Shu's separation of his children Geb and Nut, the parting of the earth and the sky by the air, is among the foundational acts of creation, the making of the space of the world in which all things exist.

Shu matters above all as the breath of life and the support of the sky. As the air in every nostril, the breath that Atum exhaled and that gives life to all living things, Shu embodies the life-giving power of the air, and the Coffin Text spells in which the dead identify with him to breathe in the afterlife make the air-god central to the Egyptian conception of survival after death. As the god who holds the heavens above the earth, whose continued effort keeps the sky from falling back upon the ground, Shu embodies the maintenance of the cosmic order, the support that keeps the world in being.

Shu is significant for the Egyptian conception of the structure of the cosmos. The arrangement of the air between the earth and the sky, with Shu standing between Geb and Nut and holding the sky aloft, expresses the basic structure of the Egyptian universe, the realm of air and light in which the world exists, made when the air came between the earth and the sky. The four pillars or supports of the sky, associated with Shu, render the air-god's role as the support of the heavens, and the continued existence of the world depended, in this conception, on Shu's holding the sky in its place.

Shu's role in the kingship-of-the-gods tradition gives him a significance for the Egyptian ideology of divine and royal succession. As the second divine king, succeeding Ra and reigning before Geb, Shu was a link in the divine dynasty from which the kingship of Egypt descended, and the troubles of his reign formed part of the mythology of the succession of the gods. The air-god thus stood within the framework of ideas by which the Egyptians understood the descent of kingship from the gods.

For the broader study of Egyptian religion, Shu is significant as a witness to the Heliopolitan cosmogony, to the separation of earth and sky, to the breath of life, and to the personification of the air. His place in the Ennead, his defining act of separating the sky from the earth, his role as the breath of life and the support of the sky, and his reign as the second king of the gods made him a foundational figure of the Egyptian cosmos, present throughout three thousand years of Egyptian religious thought and art. The air-god who separated the sky from the earth, holds the heavens aloft, and gives the breath of life remains central to any understanding of the Egyptian universe.

Connections

The cosmogony of Heliopolis is the theological system in which Shu is the air-god, the firstborn of Atum and the first of the gods drawn from the creator. Shu's place in this system, as the air that came between the earth and the sky, fixes his identity as the agent of the separation of the cosmos and the support of the heavens.

The Ennead is the group of nine Heliopolitan gods to which Shu belongs, the divine family descending from Atum that includes Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Shu occupies the first generation of created gods, the air drawn from the creator and the father of the sky and the earth.

The Atum entry addresses the creator of Heliopolis, Shu's father, who produced him and Tefnut from his own body, by sneezing out Shu and spitting out Tefnut. The production of Shu from Atum is the first act of creation in the Heliopolitan system, the beginning of the descent of the gods from the creator.

The Ra entry covers the sun-god, the first king of the gods whose throne passed to Shu as the second king, and whose passage across the sky takes place through the space of air and light that Shu fills. The Book of the Heavenly Cow preserves part of the royal mythology of Shu and the succession of the divine kings.

The Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys entries cover the four great gods of the Osirian drama, Shu's grandchildren, the children of Geb and Nut who descend from the air-god through the sky and the earth. The Coffin Texts contain the Shu cycle of Spells 75 to 83, the principal source for the air-god's own theology, in which Shu speaks as the breath of life and the dead identify with him to breathe in the afterlife.

Among the sibling deities of this batch, Tefnut is Shu's twin and consort, the moisture to his air, and Nut and Geb are his children, the sky and the earth that he separated. The Pyramid Texts contain the earliest references to Shu, the air-god who supports the sky and into whose realm the dead king ascends. The connections of Shu thus run through the whole Heliopolitan system, from the creator Atum and the production of the first gods through the separation of the sky and the earth to the breath of life, the support of the heavens, and the kingship of the gods.

Further Reading