The pool (she) symbol in
Egyptian mythology
Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world around them. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part ...
represents
water
Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
. It is a rectangle, longer horizontally than vertically, with seven equally spaced vertical zigzag lines within it.
It can also represent the primal waters that the Egyptians believed was the source of all things, which they called
Nun
A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...
. Occasionally, the
sun god is depicted as a
sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
arising from the pool symbol.
Egyptian
pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...
s had decreed that objects in paintings and the like should be instantly recognizable to the viewer. Hence,
reflecting pools were shown from a
bird's-eye view
A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective (graphical), perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downward. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photog ...
, even if the rest of the image was shown from the side.
References
Egyptian mythology
{{Egyptian-myth-stub