Nun

The Primordial Waters

Domain: Waters, Chaos & Origin
Alignment: True Neutral
Element: Water
Relics of Power: Ocean of Chaos

Speak with Nun

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5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Ancient Egyptians

Region

Nile Valley, Egypt

Period

c. 3100 BC – 400 AD

The Egyptian gods were worshipped for over three millennia along the banks of the Nile, with monumental temples at Karnak, Luxor, and Heliopolis. The pharaohs were held to be divine, and life revolved around cosmic order (Maat) and preparation for the afterlife. The cult endured until the rise of Christianity in Roman Egypt.

At the Opet festival, Amun's sacred barque sailed from Karnak to Luxor amid celebrating crowds. In the temples, priests woke, dressed, and fed the god's statue every day, and the Beautiful Festival of the Valley carried the deities to visit the shore of the dead.

At a glance

Nun (Egyptian nwn; Budge and Faulkner write Nu) is the Egyptian name for the primordial waters: a deep, boundless and inert mass of water from which, according to the texts, the heavens, the earth and everything in them came. He is not a god of myths with a plot of their own. In the sources read he appears as the medium from which the creator arises, as the first name in the list of the Eight of Hermopolis, and as the water from which Ra rises. The witnesses opened here run from the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts to the Book of the Dead and the Shabaka Stone.

10 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The infinite waters, the primordial mound, the lotus and the darkness

Family

Nun

Unions

Naunet (feminine counterpart of the primordial waters; Budge spells her Nut)

Children

Atum

Genealogy according to Livro dos Mortos, cap. 17 e 175 (Budge); Textos das Pirâmides, enunciados 360-362, 606 (Faulkner); Pedra de Shabaka (Holmberg, Breasted); Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians II

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Faulkner, R. O. (trad.), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (1969). read
Budge, E. A. Wallis (trans.), The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani and others). read

Studies

Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Gods of the Egyptians, or Studies in Egyptian Mythology. 1904. open
Breasted, J. H., Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. 1912. open
Holmberg, M. S., The God Ptah. 1946. open

Name and epithets

The Egyptian form nwn designates the primordial waters; the reading "Nun" is a modern convention, and the ancient vocalization is unknown.

In the ancient sources

Pyramid Texts, Old Kingdom. Faulkner renders the name as Nu. In utterance 361 "Nu has commended the King to Atum"; in 362 the king says he will protect his father Atum in darkness "even as Nu protected these four goddes…

The myths

Atum comes into existence in Nu. Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead, in Budge's translation from the Papyrus of Ani, begins with the speech of Tem: "I am the god Tem in rising; I am the only One.

Worship and archaeology

In the sources opened for this revision there is no record of a cult of Nun of his own, with temple, priesthood and festival.

How the god was depicted

Budge describes Nu in human form holding a sceptre, when he is one of the gods of Amen, but also with the head of a frog surmounted by a beetle, and even with the head of a snake.

What scholars debate

Local theologies and a single model. Breasted shows that the theology of Memphis made Ptah the center but admitted Atum as immediate creator, which indicates the weight of the solar theology of Heliopolis.

After antiquity

The Greeks called Khemennu Hermopolis, and the Arabs Eshmunen, as Budge records. The passages read bring no comparisons of Nun with other primordial waters, nor a modern history of excavations, and so they are left out…

Did you know?

The Shabaka Stone was used as a nether millstone, and the wear almost abraded the inscription. The Egyptian name Khemennu means "city of the Eight Gods"; the Greeks called it Hermopolis and the Arabs Eshmunen.

Codex relic

Ocean of Chaos. The watery, infinite abyss that existed before creation and surrounds the world on every side.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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