Egyptian funerary religion
Nu: Primordial Water
Nu names the primordial watery condition in Tirard’s explanation of Heliopolitan creation. The sun may rise from a lotus or an egg, giving visible form to the otherwise difficult image of light emerging from water. The separation of earth and sky follows the stirring of this original condition. The book also cites a future inundation that returns the earth to water, so the beginning can become the horizon of its undoing.
Loading your archive…
In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalNu names the primordial watery condition in Tirard’s explanation of Heliopolitan creation. The sun may rise from a lotus or an egg, giving visible form to the otherwise difficult image of light emerging from water.
Further detail
TraditionalThe separation of earth and sky follows the stirring of this original condition. The book also cites a future inundation that returns the earth to water, so the beginning can become the horizon of its undoing.
Context & interpretation
Tirard’s 1910 account interprets selected funerary texts and rituals through the scholarship of her period. Local cults and surviving manuscripts vary; her comparisons and proposed origins are not a modern Egyptological consensus.
Original passages
Source 1
The Book of the Dead
the god Nu, the primordial element of waterOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 100
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0100
- Original scan leaf
- 110
- Recorded leaf number
- 100
- Current Reader position
- 93
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Source 2
The Book of the Dead
cover the earth with water, and make it again to become Nu, the primaeval ocean, nor is it said that this flood will * Mention ofOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 104
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0104
- Original scan leaf
- 114
- Recorded leaf number
- 104
- Current Reader position
- 97
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Continue exploring
Atum
The self-emerging creator called Tum by Tirard, rising from primordial water in the Heliopolitan creation account.
Same subject and traditionEnnead of Heliopolis
Nine gods arranged as a creation family, with variant lists.
Same subject and traditionOgdoad of Hermopolis
A company of eight linked to primordial elemental pairs.