Nun (mythology)
Egyptian deity
Nun ("The Inert One") or Nu ("Watery One") (Ancient Egyptian: 𓏌𓏌𓏌𓇯𓈗𓀭, romanized: nnw, Ancient Egyptian pronunciation: [ˈnaːnaw]; Coptic: Ⲛⲟⲩⲛ, romanized: Noun), in ancient Egyptian religion, is the personification of the primordial watery abyss which existed at the time of creation and from which the creator sun god Ra arose.
Nun is one of the eight deities of the Ogdoad representing ancient Egyptian primordial Chaos from which the primordial mound arose. Nun can be seen as the first of all the gods and the creator of reality and personification of the cosmos. Nun is also considered the god that will destroy existence and return everything to the Nun whence it came. No cult was addressed to Nun.
Nun's consort (or his female aspect) was the goddess Nunut or Naunet (Ancient Egyptian: 𓏌𓏌𓏌𓇯𓈗𓏏𓆇𓁐, romanized: nnwt).
Name
The name on Nun is paralleled with nen "inactivity" in a play of words in, "I raised them up from out of the watery mass [nu], out of inactivity [nen]". The name has also been compared to the Coptic noun "abyss; deep".
Origin myth
The ancient Egyptians envisaged the oceanic abyss of the Nun as surrounding a bubble in which the sphere of life is encapsulated, representing the deepest mystery of their cosmogony. In ancient Egyptian creation accounts, the original mound of land comes forth from the waters of the Nun.
“Nun (mythology)” enters the record as egyptian deity. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what mythology, Egyptian and deity can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q276563. VIAF identifies the subject as 5735731. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nun (mythology)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.