Ancient Egyptians appear to have depicted the Milky Way in their funerary art, according to a new study published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. Dr. Or Grauer, associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth, analyzed images of the sky goddess Nut to shed new light on how ancient Egyptians conceptualized the cosmos.
Curving Line Motif May Reference Milky Way
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Nut is the goddess of the sky. In funerary art, she typically appears as a nude, star-spangled woman, her body protectively arching up and over the earth god Geb. Graur analyzed 125 of these images, most of which date back over 3,000 years. One of these depictions struck Graur as particularly interesting. On the outer coffin of Nesitaudjatakhet, a chantress to Amun-Re who died about 3,000 years ago, Nut’s body bears a thick, undulating black line from her feet to her fingertips.
“I think that the undulating curve represents the Milky Way and could be a representation of the Great Rift—the dark band of dust that cuts through the Milky Way’s bright band of diffused light,” Graur explained. “Comparing this depiction with a photograph of the Milky Way shows the stark similarity.” In the study, Graur wrote, “Similar undulating curves bisect the astronomical ceiling in the tomb of Seti I and appear as part of depictions of Nut in the tombs of Ramesses IV, VI, and IX.”
Ancient Egyptians believed that Nut swallowed the sun each evening and gave birth to it again at dawn. For this reason, her arched form typically appears with her rear in the east and her head in the west. Grauer also noted that Nut’s arms are sometimes depicted in a north-south orientation, further reinforcing his theory that certain iterations of the goddess’s body are illuminated by the Milky Way Galaxy as observed by ancient Egyptians. In the night sky, the galaxy appears to stretch from east to west in summer and north to south in winter.
The Mythology of the Milky Way
In an earlier study, Graur looked at ancient sources, including the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of Nut. He compared their contents to simulations of the Egyptian night sky. It was in this study that he first linked the Milky Way to Nut’s role in ancient Egyptian mythology.
Graur’s conclusions on the matter continue to evolve and expand as his research progresses. “The texts, on their own, suggested one way to think about the link between Nut and the Milky Way,” he explained. “Analyzing her visual depictions on coffins and tomb murals added a new dimension that, quite literally, painted a different picture.”
These studies are part of the astrophysicist’s larger interdisciplinary project to map the multi-cultural mythology of the Milky Way. Interestingly, undulating line motifs also appear to represent the Milky Way in the art of some Indigenous American cultures.
