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NIT

NIT

Nit (Net, Neit, Neith) was the predynastic goddess of war and weaving, the goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the patron goddess of Zau in the Delta. In later times she was also thought to have been an androgynous demiurge - a creation deity - who had both male and female attributes. The Egyptians believed her to be an ancient and wise goddess, to whom the other gods came if they could not resolve their own disputes.

Generally depicted as a woman, Nit was shown either wearing her emblem - either a shield crossed with two arrows, or a weaving shuttle - or the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. Nit was probably linked with the crown of Lower Egypt due to the similarities between her name, and the name of the crown - nt. Similarly, her name was linked to the root of the word for 'weave' - ntt (which is also the root for the word 'being'). She was also often shown carrying a bow and arrows, linking her to hunting and warfare, or a scepter and the ankh sign of life. She was also shown in the form of a cow, though this was very rare.

"Nit, the Cow, which gave birth to Ra," ... In late dynastic times there is no doubt that Nit was regarded as nothing but a form of , but at an earlier period she was certainly a personification of a form of the great, inert, primeval watery mass out of which sprang the sun god Ra, and it is possible, as Brugsch has suggested, that the name Nit may be akin in meaning to .

-- Wallis Budge, E.A. 1969, The Gods of the Egyptians: Volume 1, p. 451

As the mother of Ra, the Egyptians believed her to be connected with the god of the watery primeval void, Nun. (Her name might have also been linked to a word for water - nt - thus providing the connection between the goddess and the primeval waters.) Because the sun god arose from the primeval waters, and with Nit being these waters, she was thought to be the mother of the sun, and mother of the gods. She was called 'Nit, the Cow Who Gave Birth to Ra' as one of her titles. The evil serpent Apep, the enemy of Ra, was believed to have been created when Nit spat into the waters of Nun, her spittle turning into the giant water snake. As a creatrix, though, her name was written using the hieroglyph of an ejaculating phallus - a strong link to the male creative force a hint as to her part in the creation of the universe.

According to the Iunyt (Esna) cosmology the goddess emerged from the primeval waters to create the world. She then followed the flow of the Nile northward to found Zau in company with the subsequently venerated lates-fish. There are much earlier references to Nit's association with the primordial flood-waters and to her demiurge: Amenhotep II (18th Dynasty) in one inscription is the pharaoh 'whose being Nit moulded'; the papyrus (20th Dynasty) giving the account of the struggle between Horus and mentions Nit 'who illuminated the first face' and in the sixth century BC the goddess is said to have invented birth.

There is confusion as to the Emblem of Nit - originally it was of a shield and two crossed arrows, but this changed over time. This was her symbol from the earliest times, and there is no doubt that she was a goddess of hunting and war since times. The symbol of her town, Zau, used the crossed arrows emblem from early times, and was used in the name of the nome of which her city was the capital. She was known as the 'Lady of Zau'. Samuel Sharpe (1837), in Rudiments of a Vocabulary of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, notes some of her other titles as, 'Nit mother of the gods, queen of heaven', 'Nit the queen of Upper Egypt, the great divine mother', and 'Nit the queen of Lower Egypt, the Lady of Zau'.

A less familiar but very early emblem of Nit is a pair of crossed arrows over what has been interpreted as a shield, crossed bows or a pair of elaterid beetles supported on a pole, known as the bilobate sign ... During the Early Dynastic, this is the most common representation of Nit, and numerous examples of it survive, often in simplified form as two crossed arrows, with shaped tips and feathered ends either with or without a pole, or simply two crossed lines ...

A rather more surprising symbol for her during the Early Dynastic, which survived into the Old Kingdom, was an elaterid beetle (probably Agrypnus notodonta, also known as the "click beetle"). Although few amulets have survived from the Early Dynastic, Nit is represented in the form of this beetle in one of a set of three hollow gold amulets found in a woman's burial in Nag ed-Deir, the surface of which was marked with emblems of the goddess. The above-mentioned greywacke fragment in Brussels shows two of these beetles, nose to nose, beautifully carved, adjacent to the bilobate emblem ... Another greyacke item (E 578, also in Brussels), this time a bowl from the reign of Den at Umm el Qaab, shows the beetle with arms and hands held out to the sides, the left one holding a was-sceptre, the right one holding a staff with the top missing. The was sceptre, which was often associated with Nit in later times, represents the concepts of power and dominion.

The earliest use of the shield and two crossed arrows emblem was used in the name of queen Nithotep, 'Nit is Pleased', who seems to have been the wife of Aha "Fighter" Menes of the 1st Dynasty. Another early dynastic queen, Merytnit, 'Beloved of Nit', served as regent around the time of king Den. The emblem is also used in the depiction of the Temple of Nit on a tag belonging to Aha Menes, found at Abydos, depicting two sacred boats float on the sanctuary of the goddess Nit to the right of the first register. This item is currently in the British Museum (35518), but sadly much of the tag has been lost, including the depiction of Nit's emblem

The later form of the Emblem is what some people believe to be a weaving shuttle. It is possible that the symbols were confused by the Egyptians themselves, and so she became a goddess of weaving and other domestic arts. It was claimed, in one version of her tale, that she created the world by weaving it with her shuttle.

She was linked to with a number of goddesses including Isis, Bast, Wadjet, Nekhbet, Sekhemet, and Mut. As a cow, she was linked to both Nut and Hathor. She was also linked to Tatet, the goddess who dressed the dead, and was thus linked to preservation of the dead. This was probably due to being a weaver goddess - she was believed to make the bandages for the deceased. With Serqet, she was a watcher of the sky who, in one story, was thought to stop Amen and his wife from being disturbed while they were together, making her a goddess of marriages.

She might have also been linked to Anubis and Wepwawet (Upuaut) because one of her earliest titles was also 'Opener of the Ways'. She was also one of the four goddesses - herself, Isis, Serqet, and Nephthys- who watched over the deceased as well as each goddess protecting one of the four Sons of Horus. Nit, along with the wolf- or jackal-headed Son of Horus, Duamutef, watched over the east cardinal point of the sarcophagus where the canopic jar containing the stomach was placed. Also, during the earliest times, weapons were placed around the grave to protect the dead, and so her nature of a warrior-goddess might have been a direct link to her becoming a mortuary goddess. However, as 'Opener of the Ways', she had other functions relating her back to the sun god, Ra.

Other than the sun god Ra, her son was believed to be Sobek, the crocodile god. She was regarded as his mother from early times - the two were mentioned as mother and son in the pyramid of Unas - and one of her titles was 'Nurse of Crocodiles' (especially when she was depicted a woman nursing a baby crocodile). During the Old Kingdom she was also regarded as the wife of Set, though by later times, especially at the Fayum, this relationship was dropped and she became the wife of Sobek instead. In Upper Egypt, especially at Iunyt, she was married to the inundation god, Khnum, instead.