Tefnut

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Tefnut

In Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over at least 3,000 years, from the Predynastic Egypt until the adoption of Coptic Christianity in the early centuries Common Era....
, Tefnut (alternate spellings Tefenet, Tefnet) is a goddess of water

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
and fertility, indeed her name means moist waters (i.e. rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation . On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into droplet heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface....
). She was created by Atum

Atum

Atum is an important deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred on the city of Heliopolis . His name is thought to be derived from the word 'tem' which means to complete or finish....
(a solar god, as were Ra

Ra is an ancient Egyptian Solar deity . By the Fifth dynasty of Egypt he became a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon, with other deities representing other positions of the sun....
, Horakty, and Khepri

Khepri

This article is about the Egyptian god. For the type of robot, see Khepera mobile robot.In Egyptian mythology, Khepri is the name of a major god....
) from his mucus, a mythology that may be related to the alternative translation of her name - spat waters. Another version (the Memphite version of the myth) states that Atum sneezed once and Tefnut's brother Shu was born, and when he coughed to clear his throat Tefnut was born.

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Encyclopedia

In Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Water

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation . On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into droplet heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface....
). She was created by Atum

Atum

Khepri

Shu (Egyptian deity)

In Egyptian mythology, Shu is one of the primordial gods, a personification of air, one of the Ennead of Heliopolis . He was created by Atum from his breath, resulting from an act of masturbation or autofellatio in the city of Heliopolis....
, she was the mother of Geb

Geb

Geb was the egyptian mythology god of the Earth and a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis . The name was pronounced as such from the Greek period onward, ...
and Nut

Nut (goddess)

In the Ennead mythology, Nut , was the goddess of the sky. Her name means Night. Some of the titles of Nut were Coverer of the Sky, She Who Protects, Mistress of All, and She Who Holds a Thousand Souls....
. In a third version, Atum masturbated and his semen formed Tefnut, and his breath, her brother Shu.

In a myth describing the terrible weather disaster at the end of the Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BCE when Ancient Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement ? this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley ....
it was said that Tefnut (moisture) and Shu once argued, and she left Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
. The myth states that Shu quickly decided he missed her, but she fled to Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region in Southern Egypt along the Nile and in what is now northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt....
(somewhere much more temperate

Temperate

In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally mild, rather than extreme hot or cold....
), and changed into a cat (symbolic of war), destroying any man or god that approached. Thoth

Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
, disguised, eventually succeeds in convincing her to return. Tefnut is sometimes depicted as lioness in reflection of this tale. She is also shown as a lioness headed goddess. In pictures Tefnut is usually seen lying between the firmament and the earth.