Book of the Heavens

This book, developed during the late New Kingdom, describes the sun's passage through the heavens. There are actually a number of individual books, but the better documented of these include the Book of the Day, the Book of the Night and the Book of Nut. Closely related is The Book of the Celestial Cow. For example, the Book of the Night, like other books, documents the sun's journey but set within Nut, goddess of the heavens. She swallows the sun at the close of the day and gives birth to it each morning. Passages from these books are mostly found in Ramessid period tombs.

The Book of the Divine Cow begins with the "Myth of the Destruction of Mankind", the Egyptian version of the story of the great flood. In the beginning daylight was always present, and humans and gods cohabited on earth. This was depicted as paradise, but humans rebelled against the aging sun god, Ra. Ra sent Hathor as his eye (cobra snake) to punish the rebels, who began to destroy them with fire. However, Ra ended up feeling sorry for them and so deceived Hathor into letting some humans live. Ra then rearranged heaven and the underworld and left earth on the back of the celestial cow.

After the death of Akhenaten, signaling the end of the Amarna Period, we find a new set of Books related to the afterlife. These books centered around Nut, who swallows the sun god in the evening, only to give birth to him in the morning. During the day the sun god passes visibly along her body, but during the night, he travels through her body back to the place where he will rise once more.

Beginning with Ramesses IV, two of the Books of the Sky were usually placed next to each other on the ceilings of royal tombs. They depicted a double representation of Nut, back to back. The the focus is on the sun god, other heavenly bodies are also included. Generally speaking, the books emphasize cosmography and the topography of the sky, a topic which had its beginnings in the Book of the Heavenly Cow, though the astronomical ceilings found in the tombs of Seti I (KV17) through Ramesses III (KV11) can also be viewed as precursors to the Books of the Sky (heavens). These books are generally considered to consist of the Book of Nut, the Book of the Day and the Book of the Night.