Naunet
Egyptian · deity · primordial · deity
Naunet is the abyss in the feminine. The Ogdoad works by naming four qualities of the pre-creation state — water, darkness, endlessness, hiddenness — and giving each a male and a female holder, which is a way of saying that the condition was total rather than partial. The Egyptians did not think the primeval water went away at creation: it is still there, outside and underneath, and the sun has to be reborn out of it every morning. The registry had Nun with 'Nunet' filed as an alias, which is exactly the move this record undoes.
Domains
- primordial waters
Relations
- counterpart of: Nun
Sources
- Reference treatments of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis and of its four pairs.