The ''Book of Nut'' (original title: ''The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars'') is a collection of ancient Egyptian astronomical texts, also covering various mythological subjects. These texts focus on the cycles of the stars of the

decans The decans (; Egyptian ''bꜣktw'' or ''baktiu'', "hoseconnected with work") are 36 groups of stars (small constellations) used in the ancient Egyptian astronomy to conveniently divide the 360 degree ecliptic into 36 parts of 10 degrees each, b ...

, the movements of the moon, the sun, and the planets, on the

sundials A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat p ...

, and related matters. This title was given to the book because of the depiction of the sky goddess Nut arching over the earth in some copies of the text. She is supported by the god of the air Shu. Texts in the ''Book of Nut'' include material from different periods of Egyptian history. The original name of the book, ''The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars'', was discovered by Alexandra von Lieven in one of the manuscript fragments and published in 2007. One of the major themes of the ''Book of Nut'' is the concept of sunrise as the mythological rebirth.

Texts

There are nine different copies of the book and they have various dates. Three copies are found on monuments and six more are found in the papyri of the second century AD found in the temple library in ancient

Tebtunis Tebtunis was a city and later town in Lower Egypt. The settlement was founded in approximately 1800 BCE by the Twelfth Dynasty king Amenemhat III. It was located in what is now the village of Tell Umm el-Baragat in the Faiyum Governorate. In Tebtu ...

, a town in the southern

Faiyum Oasis The Faiyum Oasis ( ar, واحة الفيوم ''Waḥet El Fayyum'') is a depression or basin in the desert immediately to the west of the Nile, or just 62 miles south of Cairo in Egypt. The extent of the basin area is estimated at between 1,270 ...

. These include texts both in hieratic and demotic; some parts are written in hieroglyphs as well. Three texts of the ''Book of Nut'' are preserved on monuments: the tomb of

Ramses IV Heqamaatre Setepenamun Ramesses IV (also written Ramses or Rameses) was the third pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. He was the second son of Ramesses III and became crown prince when his elder brother Amenher ...

, The Cenotaph of

Seti I Menmaatre Seti I (or Sethos I in Greek) was the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the New Kingdom period, ruling c.1294 or 1290 BC to 1279 BC. He was the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II. The ...

at the

Osireion __NOTOC__ The Osirion or Osireion is an ancient megalithic structure located at Abydos, to the rear of the Mortuary Temple of Seti I. Its original purpose is unknown. It is an integral part of Seti I's funeral complex and is possibly built to ...

in Abydos, and the tomb of the noblewoman Mutirdis (

TT410 The Theban Tomb TT410 is located in El-Assasif, part of the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite to Luxor. The tomb belongs to Mutirdis, the chief companion lady of the God's Wife of Amun during the time of Nitocris I, and Ps ...

) of the

26th Dynasty The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) dynasty was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although others followed). The dynasty's reign (664–525 ...

. These monumental copies are written in hieroglyphs. Currently, the Tebtunis textual material is scattered all over the world due to its complex excavation and acquisition history. There are several thousand fragments of unpublished papyri held by various museums that are being evaluated by scholars. The most highly prized of the manuscripts are the demotic Carlsberg papyri 1, and 1a, because of their completeness. They were written by the same scribe. Other manuscripts are mostly fragmentary. There are substantial differences among all of these copies, indicating that the textual tradition of the ''Book of Nut'' was still very much alive even in the second century AD.

History of scholarship

The early Egyptologists gave a lot of attention to the astronomical parts of the ''Book of Nut''. First available for modern research was the material from the tomb of

, which included the astronomical painting of Nut and the list of the decans. The text was first used by

Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in th ...

and

Ippolito Rosellini Niccola Francesco Ippolito Baldassarre Rosellini, known simply as Ippolito RoselliniBardelli 1843, p. 4 (13 August 1800 – 4 June 1843) was an Italian Egyptologist. A scholar and friend of Jean-François Champollion, he is regarded as t ...

, later copied by

Heinrich Brugsch Heinrich Karl Brugsch (also ''Brugsch-Pasha'') (18 February 18279 September 1894) was a German Egyptologist. He was associated with Auguste Mariette in his excavations at Memphis. He became director of the School of Egyptology at Cairo, produci ...

. A new edition was issued in 1990 by Erik Hornung. In 1933, The Cenotaph of Seti I at the

in Abydos was discovered. This was important because this version represents the oldest text. Adriaan de Buck's translation of the cryptographic sections of the ''Book of Nut'' significantly advanced the studies. In 1977,

Jan Assmann Jan Assmann (born Johann Christoph Assmann; born 7 July 1938) is a German Egyptologist. Life and works Assmann studied Egyptology and classical archaeology in Munich, Heidelberg, Paris, and Göttingen. In 1966–67, he was a fellow of the German ...

published another relevant text from the tomb of the noblewoman Mutirdis, dating to the 26th Dynasty. Some important new material has been published since 2007.

Dates of composition

Most likely the ''Book of Nut'' text evolved over a long period of time going back before the time of

. The astronomical data included in the decan list below the body of Nut point to the

12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some s ...

, the time of

Sesostris III Khakaure Senusret III (also written as Senwosret III or the hellenised form, Sesostris III) was a pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC during a time of great power and prosperity, and was the fifth king of the Twelfth Dynasty of the ...

. There are two different decan lists that cannot be reconciled, so one of them must be secondary. According to von Lieven, the Middle Kingdom data is secondary, and she suggests that the earlier list goes back to the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourt ...

,Alexandra von Lieven
''Translating the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars.''
in

Annette Imhausen Annette Imhausen (also known as Annette Warner, born June 12, 1970) is a German historian of mathematics known for her work on Ancient Egyptian mathematics. She is a professor in the Normative Orders Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Fra ...

, Tanja Pommerening, eds, ''Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome, and Greece: Translating Ancient Scientific Texts.'' Volume 286 of Beiträge zur Altertumskunde. Walter de Gruyter, 2010 the first of the three major divisions of dynasties.

Notes

Bibliography

*Marshall Clagett
''Ancient Egyptian Science, Volume 2: Calendars, clocks, and astronomy.''
Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1995 *

: ''Das Grab der Mutirdis.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1977, . * Henri Frankfort: ''The Cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos (with chapters by Adriaan de Buck and Battiscombe Gunn).'' Egypt Exploration Society, London 1933. * Erik Hornung: ''Zwei ramessidische Königsgräber – Ramses IV. und Ramses VII.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1990, . * Hans-Otto Lange,

Otto Neugebauer Otto Eduard Neugebauer (May 26, 1899 – February 19, 1990) was an Austrian-American mathematician and historian of science who became known for his research on the history of astronomy and the other exact sciences as they were practiced in anti ...

: ''Papyrus Carlsberg No. 1 – Ein hieratisch-demotischer kosmologischer Text.'' Munksgaard, Kopenhagen 1940. *

Christian Leitz Christian Leitz (born 7 August 1960) is a German Egyptologist. Leitz was born in Borghorst, Westphalia / Germany. He studied Egyptology, Assyriology and Coptology at the universities in Marburg and Göttingen and received his PhD in Göttinge ...

: ''Altägyptische Sternuhren.'' Peeters, Leuven 1995, . * Christian Leitz: ''Studien zur ägyptischen Astronomie.'' Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1991, . * Otto Neugebauer,

Richard Anthony Parker Richard Anthony Parker (December 10, 1905 – June 3, 1993) was a prominent Egyptologist and professor of Egyptology. Originally from Chicago, he attended Mt. Carmel High School (then known as St. Cyril) with acclaimed author James T. Farrell. He ...

: ''Egyptian astronomical Texts (EAT) – The early decans.'' Brown University Press, Rhode Island 1960. *

Alexandra von Lieven Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...

: ''Grundriss des Laufes der Sterne. Das sogenannte Nutbuch.'' The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (u. a.), Kopenhagen 2007, . * Alexandra von Lieven: ''Der Himmel über Esna. Eine Fallstudie zur religiösen Astronomie in Ägypten am Beispiel der kosmologischen Decken- und Architravinschriften im Tempel von Esna.'' Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2000, . *Alexandra von Lieven
''Translating the Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars.''
in

Sources

*German Wikipedia

External links

{{commons category, Ancient Egyptian star charts
Early Egyptian Constellations - The decan stars
by Gary David Thompson
The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection
- Inventory of Published Papyri Ancient Egyptian literature Ancient Egyptian religion Ancient Egyptian texts Ancient astronomy Astronomical catalogues Astronomy in Egypt Egyptian calendar