Tefnut ( egy, ; cop, ⲧϥⲏⲛⲉ ) is a deity of

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some commercial products. Moisture also refers to the amount of water vapo ...

, moist air, dew and

rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

Ancient Egyptian religion Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present in, and in contro ...

.The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the mother of Geb and Nut.

Etymology

The name Tefnut has no certain etymology but it may be an

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

of the sound of spitting, as

Atum Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Name Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to co ...

spits her out in some versions of the creation myth. Additionally, her name was written as a mouth spitting in late texts. Like most Egyptian deities, including her brother, Tefnut has no single ideograph or symbol. Her name in hieroglyphs consists of four single phonogram signs t-f-n-t. Although the n phonogram is a representation of waves on the surface of water, it was never used as an

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by famili ...

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may ...

for the word water (''mw''), or for anything associated with water.

Mythological origins

Egyptian - Menat with the Heads of the Deities Shu and Tefnut - Walters 541515

Tefnut is a daughter of the

solar deity A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. Th ...

Ra-

. Married to her twin brother Shu, she is mother of Nut, the sky and Geb, the earth. Tefnut's grandchildren were

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...

Set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

Nephthys Nephthys or Nebet-Het in ancient Egyptian ( grc-gre, Νέφθυς) was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion. A member of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis in Egyptian mythology, she was a daughter of Nut and Geb. Nephthys was typically paire ...

, and, in some versions, Horus the Elder. She was also the great-grandmother of Horus the Younger. Alongside her father, brother, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild, she is a member of the

Ennead The Ennead or Great Ennead was a group of nine Egyptian pantheon, deities in Egyptian mythology worshipped at Heliopolis (Ancient Egypt), Heliopolis: the sun god Atum; his children Shu (Egyptian deity), Shu and Tefnut; their children Geb and Nu ...

of Heliopolis. There are a number of variants to the myth of the creation of the twins Tefnut and Shu. In every version, Tefnut is the product of

parthenogenesis Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek grc, παρθένος, translit=parthénos, lit=virgin, label=none + grc, γένεσις, translit=génesis, lit=creation, label=none) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and developmen ...

, and all involve some variety of body fluid. In the Heliopolitan creation myth, Atum sneezed to produce Tefnut and Shu. Pyramid Text 527 says, "Atum was creative in that he proceeded to sneeze while in Heliopolis. And brother and sister were born - that is Shu and Tefnut." In some versions of this myth, Atum also spits out his saliva, which forms the act of procreation. This version contains a play on words, the ''tef'' sound which forms the first syllable of the name Tefnut also constitutes a word meaning "to spit" or "to expectorate". The

Coffin Texts The Coffin Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. They are partially derived from the earlier Pyramid Texts, reserved for royal use only, but contain substantial ...

contain references to Shu being sneezed out by Atum from his nose, and Tefnut being spat out like saliva. The Bremner-Rind Papyrus and the

Memphite Theology The Shabaka Stone, sometimes Shabaqo, is a relic incised with an ancient Egyptian religious text, which dates from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt. In later years, the stone was likely used as a millstone, which damaged the hieroglyphs. This dam ...

describe Atum as sneezing out saliva to form the twins.

Iconography

Tefnut is a leonine deity, and appears as human with a lioness head when depicted as part of the Great

of Heliopolis. The other frequent depiction is as a lioness, but Tefnut can also be depicted as fully human. In her fully or semi anthropomorphic form, she is depicted wearing a wig, topped either with a

uraeus The Uraeus (), or Ouraeus (Ancient Greek: , ; Egyptian: ', "rearing cobra"), ''(plural: Uraei)'' is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt. Symbol ...

serpent, or a uraeus and solar disk, and she is sometimes depicted as a lion headed serpent. Her face is sometimes used in a double headed form with that of her brother Shu on collar counterpoises. During the 18th and 19th Dynasties, particularly during the Amarna Period, Tefnut was depicted in human form wearing a low flat headdress, topped with sprouting plants.

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...

's mother,

Tiye Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tye, Taia, Tiy and Tiyi) was the daughter of Yuya and Thuya. She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was the mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun. ...

was depicted wearing a similar headdress, and identifying with Hathor-Tefnut. The iconic blue crown of

Nefertiti Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which ...

is thought by archaeologist Joyce Tyldesley to be derived from Tiye's headdress, and may indicate that she was also identifying with Tefnut.

Cult centres

Heliopolis and

Leontopolis Leontopolis was an ancient Egyptian city located in the Nile Delta, Lower Egypt. It served as a provincial capital and Metropolitan Archbishopric. The archaeological site and settlement are known today as Kafr Al Muqdam. Name Known most popular ...

(now ell el-Muqdam) were the primary cult centres. At Heliopolis, Tefnut was one of the members of that city's great Ennead, and is referred to in relation to the purification of the ''wabet ''(priest) as part of the temple rite. Here she had a sanctuary called the Lower Menset. At

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...

, Tefnut formed part of the

and was invoked in prayers for the health and wellbeing of the pharaoh. She was worshiped with Shu as a pair of lions in Leontopolis in the

Nile Delta The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to ...

Mythology

Tefnut was connected with other leonine goddesses as the

Eye of Ra The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, ...

. As a lioness she could display a wrathful aspect and is said to have escaped to

Nubia Nubia () ( Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sud ...

in a rage, jealous of her grandchildren's higher worship. Only after receiving the title "''honorable''" from

Thoth Thoth (; from grc-koi, Θώθ ''Thṓth'', borrowed from cop, Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ ''Thōout'', Egyptian: ', the reflex of " eis like the Ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or ...

, did she return. In the earlier

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterran ...

she is said to produce pure waters from her

vagina In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen ...

.The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, trans R.O. Faulkner, line 2065 Utt. 685. As Shu had forcibly separated his son Geb from his sister-wife Nut, Geb challenged his father Shu, causing the latter to withdraw from the world. Geb, who was in love with his mother Tefnut, takes her as his chief queen-consort.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Egyptian goddesses Fertility goddesses Wind goddesses Water goddesses Rain deities Animal goddesses Anthropomorphic animals Lions in popular culture Personifications Lion deities Mythological rape victims