Ennead
Tefnut
tfnwtHow it changed
The first pair with Shu, and the harder of the two to pin down: moisture in the cosmology, a raging lioness in the myth. She is one of the goddesses who plays the Eye of Ra who leaves Egypt in a fury and has to be coaxed home from Nubia, a story that survives in a long demotic version and that is really about the return of the inundation.
Cult centre
Heliopolis, and Leontopolis
Best attested
Old Kingdom onward
Family
Daughter of Atum; sister-wife of Shu; mother of Geb and Nut.
Epithets
- “Lady of the flame”
How to recognise the figure
A lioness, or a lioness-headed woman with a sun disc.
Appears in
c. 2400 BCE, in the Pyramid Texts
Creation at Heliopolis
One god alone on a mound in the water, producing the first pair from himself.
Alluded to from the New Kingdom; a long demotic version survives from the Roman period
The distant goddess
The Eye of Ra storms off to Nubia in a rage, and the world dries up until she can be talked into coming home.
Carries
Worshipped at
Others in this group