Nun Tattoo Meaning

The primordial deep, the formless, origin, and the abyss before existence had a shape.

Nun is the primordial deep of Egyptian cosmology — the dark, infinite, formless ocean of chaos that existed before creation, the un-made from which the made emerged, the abyss before existence had a shape. To carry Nun is to carry the primordial deep, the formless, origin, and the abyss before existence had a shape — the boundless waters before the world, the condition from which creation arose, the deep that surrounds and underlies all things and will reclaim them at the end.

Nun (also Nu) is the primordial waters of chaos in Egyptian cosmology — the dark, infinite, formless ocean that existed before creation, before anything had come into being. Before the world, before the gods, before light or form or order, there was only Nun: a boundless, lightless, shapeless expanse of water, the watery abyss of chaos stretching without limit, formless and inert, the condition of utter undifferentiation before the first act of creation. Nun is the deep that was there before everything.

From Nun came the first beginning of the world. In the Egyptian creation accounts, from Nun emerged the primordial mound — the first dry land, the original hill that rose up out of the chaotic waters (located at Heliopolis, Memphis, or Hermopolis, depending on the tradition), and it was on this first mound, risen from Nun, that the first act of creation occurred, the beginning of the ordered world. But crucially, Nun himself did not create the world. Nun is not a creator-god who makes; rather, he was the condition from which creation emerged — the un-made from which the made came. Nun is the formless precondition, the chaotic deep that had to exist before any creation could rise out of it, the raw, undifferentiated origin-state, not the maker but the matrix. From the formless waters of Nun the formed world emerged; the made arose out of the un-made; creation rose, as the first mound, from the chaos that was there before. Nun is thus the Egyptian image of the deep before all things — the formless origin from which the world was born. The Egyptian Nun is the formless primordial ocean before creation — the un-made deep from which the first mound and the world emerged. The Egyptian Nun is the waters before creation — Nun (also Nu) is the primordial waters of chaos, the dark, infinite, formless ocean that existed before creation; from Nun emerged the primordial mound (at Heliopolis, Memphis, or Hermopolis) on which the first act of creation occurred; Nun did not create the world — he was the condition from which creation emerged, the un-made from which the made came — the boundless lightless deep that was there before everything, the formless precondition and matrix of creation, from which the formed world rose as the first mound out of the chaos.

The parallel between the Egyptian Nun and the Hebrew tehom (תְּהוֹם, the deep) in Genesis 1:2 ('darkness was over the face of the deep') has been noted by biblical scholars — both represent the primordial waters before creation, both precede the act of divine ordering, both are dark and formless. The Babylonian Tiamat (the primordial saltwater ocean that Marduk kills) is a cognate concept. The primordial water creation motif is so widespread — appearing in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Hindu, Norse (the primordial void Ginnungagap which is associated with ice and water), and many Indigenous traditions — that it may reflect a genuine ancient human intuition, possibly derived from observation of how landmasses appear from water and how embryonic life emerges from fluid. Nun continued to exist after creation in Egyptian theology — he is the water that surrounds and underlies the world, the ground water, the water at the edges of the flat earth-disc; the world floats on Nun as it emerged from Nun.

Nun across cultures

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