Nun ("The Inert One") or Nu ("Watery One") (Ancient Egyptian: ; Coptic: ), in ancient Egyptian religion, is the personification of the primordial watery abyss which existed at the time of creation and from which the creator sun god Ra arose. or Naunet (Ancient Egyptian: ).
Name
The name on Nun is paralleled with "inactivity" in a play of words in, "I raised them up from out of the watery mass [], out of inactivity []". The name has also been compared to the Coptic noun "abyss; deep".
Origin myth
The ancient Egyptians envisaged the oceanic abyss of the Nun as surrounding a bubble in which the sphere of life is encapsulated, representing the deepest mystery of their cosmogony. In ancient Egyptian creation accounts, the original mound of land comes forth from the waters of the Nun. The Nun is the source of all that appears in a differentiated world, from which emerge all aspects of divine and earthly existence. In the Ennead cosmogony, Nun is perceived as transcendent at the point of creation alongside Atum the creator god. and from this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of the sun's emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. In Heliopolis, the creation was attributed to Atum, a deity closely associated with Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nun as an inert potential being.
History
Beginning with the Middle Kingdom, Nun is described as "the father of the gods" and he is depicted on temple walls throughout the rest of ancient Egyptian religious history.