Cult of Gods

Shu

Egyptian tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains
air, sunlight
Symbols and attributes
Feather on the head
Parents (per the sources used)
Atum
Partner
Tefnut
Children
Geb, Nut
Papyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.
Papyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.

Key myth

God of the air who separates Geb from Nut, holding the sky up above the earth.

Primary sources

  • Pyramid Texts Utterance 600
  • Coffin Texts, Spell 75-81

All sources for the Egyptian pantheon

Lineage in the sources used: Atum, Nun.

Place in the family graph

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

NunAtumRaAmunShuTefnutMaatHathorSekhmetPtahGebNutAnubisThothSobekOsirisIsisSethNephthysHorus

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorseA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianVishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.HinduFolio 309r of the Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin), c. 800.Celtic (Irish)

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Shu: sky, storm and thunder. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse

Thor

thunder, protection of gods and people, strength

Norse

Freyr

peace, fertility, sunshine

Mesopotamian

Enlil

wind, command, the fates of cities

Hindu

Indra

thunder, rain, kingship of the Vedic gods

Celtic (Irish)

Lugh

skill in all arts, kingship, the sun (in later readings)

Japanese (Shinto)

Susanoo

storms, the sea (in some versions), the land of Izumo

Compare across cultures