Detail from the painted anthropoid wooden coffin lid of a man named Sema-Tawy-iirdis. He lived during the early part of the Ptolemaic Period (304-30 BCE). It shows a representation of Nut, goddess of the sky, with outstretched wings offering protection to the deceased. She carries the sun disk atop her head and a feather in each hand. This beautiful piece (E1267) is now in the Glencairn Museum,, USA.
Nut is one of the oldest deities in the Egyptian pantheon and has an extraordinary density of 'familial' ties to other deities. She is the granddaughter of the creator god Atum, the daughter of Shu and Tefnut (air and moisture), the sister and wife of Geb (earth), the mother of Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Seth, and the grandmother of Horus.
