Tefnut was the Egyptian goddess of moisture, rain and dew — the twin sister and consort of Shu the air, one of the first two beings brought forth by the creator Atum, and the mother of the earth and sky. A lioness-goddess of the life-giving waters of the air, she completes, with Shu, the first divine pair from whom the ordered world descended.
The Goddess of Moisture
Tefnut (Egyptian Tefnut) was the personification of moisture — water in the air, dew, rain, and the life-giving wetness without which nothing can grow. She was, with her twin brother Shu (air), one of the very first two deities created by Atum at the beginning of the world, brought forth from the creator's own body. Together, Shu (dryness, air) and Tefnut (moisture, wetness) formed the first complementary pair — the dry and the wet, the two essential qualities of the atmosphere — the foundation upon which the rest of creation was built. She was often depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness, sometimes crowned with the solar disc.
The Mother of Earth and Sky
By her brother-consort Shu, Tefnut was the mother of Geb (the earth) and Nut (the sky) — and thus the grandmother of the great gods Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. As the mother of earth and sky, Tefnut stood near the very root of the Heliopolitan family of gods, the second generation from the creator, the goddess from whom (with Shu) descended the whole structured cosmos of earth, sky, and the gods who dwelt within it. The first divine couple, Shu and Tefnut, were the parents of the world.
The Lioness Who Departed
One of the most famous myths concerning Tefnut tells of her departure and return. In a quarrel with her father Ra (or in her fierce lioness aspect), Tefnut left Egypt in anger and went south into the deserts of Nubia, taking her life-giving moisture with her — and in her absence, as a wild and raging lioness, the land suffered. The sun-god, missing his daughter (often identified with the Eye of Ra), sent Thoth (or Shu) to find her and persuade her to return. Through Thoth's clever words and soothing, the angry lioness-goddess was calmed and coaxed back to Egypt, and her return brought the renewal of moisture, life and joy to the land — a myth connected to the bringing of the life-giving waters and perhaps the seasonal return of fertility. The transformation of the raging desert-lioness back into the gentle, life-giving goddess was celebrated with great rejoicing.
The Wetness of the World
Tefnut endures as the Egyptian goddess of moisture and one of the foundational deities of creation — the twin of the air, the first divine consort, the lioness of the life-giving waters, the mother of earth and sky. She embodies the Egyptian understanding of moisture as an essential, divine force of life, complementary to the dry air of her brother Shu; and she stands, with Shu, as the first pair from whom the ordered cosmos descended — the wetness and the air that together made the world possible.
The first goddess, twin of the air and mother of earth and sky — the lioness of moisture whose return from the desert brings the life-giving waters back to the world.