Tefnut (also Tefnet; other epithets: “Nubian cat”, “truth”) is an ancient Egyptian goddess who is one of the nine creator deities of the Heliopolitan cosmogony (Ennead of Heliopolis). It symbolized fire. Earlier assumptions that Tefnut represents moisture have since been discarded in Egyptology.
Mythological Birth
According to Heliopolitan mythology, she was born, just like her twin brother—who will also be her consort Shu (or Shou)—from the god Atum, the creator. Tefnut and Shu thus form the first divine couple.
This divine birth is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, one of the oldest religious corpora in the world. In line 465 of the texts covering the walls of the tomb of Pepi I, it is specified that Shu and Tefnut are born from the seed of the god Atum.
The scene of creation is explicitly given in these sacred texts that accompany the king in his funerary destiny, promising him a rebirth with the gods:
“Atum manifested himself in Heliopolis in great excitement. He seized his sex and he made with his hand as if to give himself pleasure. The twins Shu and Tefnut had just been born, each with his Ka.”
— Pyramid Texts, §1248
Later in the version of Heliopolitan cosmogony, the creation of the twin gods features the god Khepri with whom the gods Atum and Ra identify. Here is how the birth of the two gods is related:
“Then Khepri said: ‘I united with my hand, and I embraced my shadow in a love embrace. I poured my seed into my mouth, and spat it out in the form of the gods Shu and Tefnut.'”
— Heliopolitan creation myth
In a later version, the two gods eventually come from the simple spitting of the sun god.
It should be noted that etymologically the name of the goddess is formed from the verb “tfn” which literally means “to spit” as well as from the verb “tf tf,” meaning “to expectorate.”
Role and Worship
Tefnut is the first female deity to come into existence in the universe, and with her husband Shu, she ensures the first sexual procreation in the world.
With the sun as her headdress, she is the symbol of the solar furnace, while Shu, her brother and husband, is the one of air, light, and life. The two entities are complementary and indispensable to the cycle of life renewal, and in the minds of the ancient Egyptians, they ensured that every morning the sun god could be reborn.
From their union were born the two other twin gods Geb (earth) and Nut (sky). They thus represent, with their two children, the four primordial elements.
Tefnut, also associated with rain, dew, and clouds, was the symbol of water and its creative power, the source of life. She embodies humid air (the change of elements) in complement to her husband, who embodies dry air (or preservation).
She was honored at Oxyrhynchus and was represented in the form of a woman with a lioness’s head with a solar disk on her head, or as a lioness. At Leontopolis, Shu and Tefnut are worshipped in the form of a lion couple.
Representation and Hypostasis
The goddess Tefnut is most often represented in the form of an anthropomorphic goddess, with a woman’s body and a lioness’s head topped with a solar disk due to her mythological origin. This iconography brings her close to that of the goddess Sekhmet, with whom she eventually merges in the myth of the Eye of Ra.
A lioness was consecrated as a living hypostasis to Tefnut at the temple of Leontopolis. The city actually takes its name from the presence of this sacred animal that lived in the temple along with another lion himself a hypostasis of the god Shu.
The two gods often cited together are sometimes depicted as two lions sitting back to back, between which rises the solar disk.
Syncretism
Because of her leonine iconography and her role as the daughter of Ra, Tefnut is associated with the personification of the Distant Goddess. She then takes on the appearance and attributes of dangerous goddesses and embodies the Eye of Ra, the cycle of the burning and devastating sun.
According to the myth, the Distant Goddess, daughter of the sun god, fled into the Nubian desert where she unleashed her ferocity. Her husband, the god Shu, and the god Thoth were charged by Ra to bring her back, which they did after intoxicating her with wine. Pacified, the Distant Goddess regained her beneficial aspect, the Inundation, and returned to Egypt.
As the daughter of Atum, Tefnut is also identified with the goddess Ma’at.
In chapter 80 of the Coffin Texts, the god announces:
“Then Atum said: ‘This is my daughter, the living one, Tefnut, she is in the company of her brother Shu. The name of Shu is Ankh. That of Tefnut is Ma’at.'”
— Coffin Texts, ch.80
Tribute
Tefnut is one of the 1,038 women whose names appear on the base of Judy Chicago’s contemporary work The Dinner Party. She is associated with the Primordial Goddess, the first guest at the table.
Etymology
In the Pyramid Texts, Tefnut is referred to in the context of the king’s ascent to the sky (Pharaoh), alongside her name “The Orphan,” the epithet “The Truth” is attested. Additionally, the king identifies himself as Osiris, embodying the water:
“Oh Geb, Bull of the Sky, I am Horus… I have gone and returned, as the fourth god of the four gods who brought the water. I am justified for what I have done. I am Tefen (Orphan), who has judged with Tefnut, the two truths, although witnesses were lacking. The two truths have commanded that the thrones of Geb return to me, so that I may rise as I desired.”
Pyramid Text 260
In the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, reference is made to the epithet of Tefnut, building upon the theological concept of creation in the Pyramid Texts: Atum said: Tefnut is my living daughter, she is with her brother Shu. “Life” is his name, “Truth” is her name… “Life” sleeps with my daughter “Truth.”
Lineage
Together with her brother, the air god Shu, she was the first to emerge from the body of the creator deity Atum, thus giving rise to bisexuality. There is another version of Tefnut’s lineage in which she and Shu are said to be the children of Isis and were born in Chemmis. The birth of Tefnut is described in connection with the birth of Horus in the planetary chapter of the Book of Nut:
“The youth in Nut, he moved away with his hands. Thus, his two hands became a vulva, with his two arms around it. Atum spoke: ‘This, which came forth from my lips, which I spat into my hand, which was a vulva, this is this. Shu and Tefnut. Ka and Kat.’ Thus, Isis and Nephthys reached out their hands to Horus to receive him when Isis gave birth to him, and he came forth from her body.”
Book of Nut, planetary chapter, lines x+95 to x+98
In addition to the mythological belief that Atum generated the gods Shu and Tefnut through masturbation, the Book of Nut describes a different creation version. Tefnut is defined as Kat and thus as a vulva. The explanations in the Book of Nut refer to the Pyramid Texts, where Atum places his arms in the form of the hieroglyph Ka around Shu and Tefnut to animate both.
While the Ka in Atum is still bisexual, Atum separates the Ka into the male (Ka) and female (Kat) principles through this creation process. The reference to the birth of Horus points to Haroeris as the cosmic Horus. His left Horus eye symbolizes the moon and Tefnut; the right Horus eye symbolizes the sun and Shu. Atum is likely equated with the cosmic Horus as Haroeris due to other statements in the Pyramid Texts, where he is often named as the 10th god of the Heliopolitan Ennead.
Meaning
Shu and Tefnut formed the pair that generated the gods: they are regarded as the parents of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Wherever Tefnut is mentioned, it happens alongside Shu; they are the ultimate twins. Tefnut is described not as a lioness, but as a Nubian cat. However, when anger seizes her, she transforms repeatedly into a “wild lioness.” Tefnut is the uraeus serpent, which also acts as the eye of the sun. In the myth “The Return of the Goddess,” it is said:
“The festive jubilation has departed with you, drunkenness disappeared and was not found. Severe strife is in all of Egypt. The hall of festivities of Re is frozen, the drinking hall of Atum is oppressed. They all departed with you and hid themselves from Egypt. There is joy among the Nubians.”
“The Return of the Goddess,” Demotic Papyrus
The unrestrained combativeness of the lioness now manifests in her power as the frontal serpent of Re. The Harris Papyrus states: “When Re travels through the sky every morning, then Tefnut rests on his head and sends her breath of fire against his enemies.” The duality of her nature is expressed in an inscription in Philae: “As Sekhmet, she is angry, as Bastet, she is joyful.” Both Sekhmet, the fierce lioness, and Bastet, the cheerful cat, are united in Tefnut. After the later fusion of the gods Atum and Re into “Atum-Re,” Shu and Tefnut thus also became children of Re.
Representation
Tefnut was depicted in human form with a lion’s head or in her main cult center of Leontopolis (Lion City) as a lion. She wears a sun disk on her head, surrounded by two snakes. Therefore, Tefnut is also known as the “Mistress of the Snake” or the “Frontal Serpent on the Head of All the Gods.” In Buto, she is known as the flamingo-like “Child of the sub-Egyptian king,” and in Elkab, she appears in the form of a vulture.
