The Ancient Egyptian Cosmological Vignette: First Visual Evidence of the Milky Way and Trends in Coffin Depictions of the Sky Goddess Nut

Abstract

Several studies have argued that the Milky Way was a representation of the ancient Egyptian sky goddess Nut. Here, I test this assumption by examining Nut's visual depictions on ancient Egyptian coffins. I assemble a catalog of 555 coffin elements, which includes 118 cosmological vignettes from the 21st/22nd Dynasties, and report several observations. First, I find that the cosmological vignette on the outer coffin of Nesitaudjatakhet bears a unique feature: a thick, undulating black curve that bisects Nut's star-studded body and recalls the Great Rift that cleaves the Milky Way in two. Moreover, it resembles similar features identified as the Milky Way on the bodies of Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni spiritual beings. Hence, I argue that the undulating curve on Nut's body is the first visual representation of the Milky Way identified in the Egyptian archaeological record. However, its rarity strengthens the conclusion reached by Graur (2024a): Though Nut and the Milky Way are linked, they are not synonymous. 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. Second, Nut's body is decorated with stars in only a quarter of the vignettes. If we associate Nut's naked and star-studded forms with the day and night sky, respectively, we would expect to see stars in half of the vignettes. This null hypothesis is rejected at $>6\sigma$ statistical significance. For whatever reason, it appears that the Egyptians of the 21st/22nd Dynasties preferred the day sky over the night sky. Finally, I discuss the interplay between Nut's cosmological vignette and full-length portraits inside coffins from the New Kingdom to the Roman Period in light of Nut's combined cosmological and eschatological roles as an embodiment of the coffin.