The ancient Egyptians were astute astronomers. They often depicted the cosmos atop coffins. A new survey of such artwork suggests that they may have had a greater understanding of the Milky Way than previously thought, according to a study in The Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.
The study focuses on how the Egyptian Sky Goddess Nut has been depicted in several settings over time. The goddess was often portrayed as a naked, star-covered woman arching over the Earth, often above the Earth god Geb. Nut’s legend has her consuming the sun at night and giving birth to it at dawn.
Ancient Egyptians and the Cosmos
The study’s author, Or Graur, an astrophysics professor at the University of Portsmouth, England examined 125 images of Nut drawn from a list of 555 ancient Egyptian coffins. He was searching for both similarities and anomalies.
He found the most telling discrepancy on the outer coffin of Nesitaudjatakhet, a chantress to Amun-Re who died about 3,000 years ago. The coffin depicts a wavy line across Nut’s star-covered body. This feature “recalls the Great Rift that cleaves the Milky Way in two,” according to the paper.
Although the feature appears to be rare in ancient Egyptian coffin art, it has been seen in other settings. Similar lines run through a star-painted ceiling within Seti I’s tomb and also appear with Nut in the tombs of Ramesses IV, VI, and IX.
“Hence, I argue that the undulating curve is a visual representation of the Milky Way and that it supports a previously suggested identification of ‘Winding Waterway’ as the Galaxy’s Egyptian name,” according to the article.
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Egyptian Astronomers and the Milky Way
Graur’s conclusion based on the Egyptian art examination supports earlier work based on his studies of previous research, written records like the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and Book of Nut. That article suggests that Egyptian astronomers used the Milky Way’s curvature to locate the constellation representing Nut.
He also found clues about Nut’s cosmological role by analyzing other inconsistencies. For instance, she was only depicted as a star-covered being in about 25 percent of the images studied. That, along with the relative rarity of the wavy line motif, could clarify the god’s significance.
“Though Nut and the Milky Way are linked, they are not synonymous,” according to the article. “Instead of acting as a representation of Nut, the Milky Way is one more celestial phenomenon that, like the Sun and the stars, is associated with Nut in her role as the sky.”
Graur’s studies of Nut represent a portion of a larger body of work that examines how various cultures have depicted the Milky Way. He has linked a similar curve to art of the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribes.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
