Budge, Ernest A. Wallis [Bearb.]: The book of the dead: the Papyrus Ani in the British Museum ; the Egyptian text with interlinear transliteration and translation, a running translation, introd. etc. ([Text]) (London, 1895)

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INTRODUCTION.

The Egyptian
heaven.

FlG. i.

feet of the goddess rested on the east, and her hands on the west; this is shown
by the scene wherein Shu is accompanied by two females who have on their
heacls ^ “ east ” and “west ’’ respectively.2 The child of the union of Seb
and Nut was the Sun, who was born in the east in the morning, and who made

legs form the four pillars upon which the heavens are supported. Nut, the sky
goddess, was the wife of Seb, the earth god, from whose embrace she was
separated by Shu, the god of the air; when this separation was effected, earth,
air, and sky came into being. Signor Lanzone has collected a number of illus-
trations of this event from papyri and other documents,1 wherein we have Seb
lying on the ground, and Shu uplifting Nut with his outstretched hands. The

1 Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia, tavv. 150 ff.

3 Ibid., tav. 158.