Geb

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Geb in hieroglyphs

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Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth and a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. The name was pronounced as such from the Greek period onward, (formerly erroneously read as Seb (cf. E.A.Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians. Studies in Egyptian Mythology (London, 1904; republ.Dover Publications, New York, 1969) or as Keb. The original Egyptian was "Gebeb"/"Kebeb", meaning probably: 'weak one', perhaps:'lame one'. It was spelled with either initial -g- (all periods), or with -k-point (gj). The latter initial root consonant occurs once in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts, more often in 21st Dynasty mythological papyri as well as in a text from the Ptolemaic tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel or was written with initial hard -k-, as e.g. in a 30th Dynasty papyrus text in the Brooklyn Museum dealing with descriptions of and remedies against snakes and their bites.

Role and development

The oldest representation in a fragmentary relief of the god was as an anthropomorphic being accompanied by his name, dating from king Djoser's reign, 3rd Dynasty, and was found in Heliopolis. In later times he could also be depicted as a ram, a bull or a crocodile. Frequently described mythologically as 'father' of snakes and depicted sometimes (partly) as such. In mythology he also often occurs as a primeval ruler/king of Egypt. Geb could be seen as earth containing the dead, or imprisoning those not worthy to go to the North-Eastern heavenly Field of Reeds.

In the Heliopolitan Ennead (a group of nine gods created in the beginning by the one god Atum), Geb is the husband of Nut, the sky or visible firmament, the son of the earlier primordial elements Tefnut ('orphaness', later also conceived of as moisture [e.g.: 'tef']) and Shu ('emptiness' or perhaps 'raiser'[namely of the firmament as air]), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system - Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. In this context, Geb was said to have originally been engaged in eternal sex with Nut, and had to be separated from her by Shu, god of the air. Consequently, in mythological depictions Geb was shown as a 'man' reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards the sky goddess Nut.

As time progressed, the deity became more associated with the habitable land of Egypt and also as one of its early godly rulers. As a chthonic deity he (like Osiris and Min) became naturally associated with the underworld and with vegetation, with barley being said to grow upon his ribs, and was depicted with plants and other green patches on his body.

His association with vegetation, and sometimes with the underworld, and also with royalty brought Geb the occasional interpretation that he was the husband of Renenutet, primarily a minor goddess of the harvest and also mythological caretaker of the young king in the shape of a cobra, who herself was the mother of Nehebkau, a primeval snake god associated with the underworld, who was on the same occasions said to be his son by her. He is also equated by classical authors as the Greek Titan Cronus.

Goose

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Some Egyptologists, like the Scandinavian Jan Bergman or Terence Duquesne, stated that Geb was associated with a mythological divine creator-goose who had laid a cosmic egg from which the sun and/or the world had sprung. This is certainly wrong and brought about by a regular spelling of the name Geb with the help of an image of a Whitefronted Goose (Anser albifrons), also called originally gb(b): 'lame one, stumbler' ^[1]. An alternative old name for this same goose species was trp meaning equally 'walk like a drunk, stumbler'. It is beyond any doubt {witness coloured images of a Nilegoose with opened beak on a mythological papyrus of the 21st Dynasty, as well as on temple walls, showing a scene of the king standing on a papyrus raft and ritually plucking papyrus for the Theban god Amun(-Re-Kamutef}, that said creator goose, called mythologically 'Ngg-wr' = 'the Great (or Oldest) Honker', appeared solely in the shape of a Nile Goose (=Egyptian Goose = Fox Goose [Alopochen aegyptiacus]), both within texts and vignets. In Underworld Books a diacritic goose-sign (most probably denoting then an Anser albifrons) was sometimes depicted on top of the head of an anonymous, standing anthropomorphic deity pointing to his identity. Geb himself was never depicted as a Nilegoose, as later certainly was the great god Amun, called on some New Kingdom stelae explicitly:'Amun, the beautiful smn-goose (Nilegoose). The only clear pictorial confusion between the hieroglyphs of a Whitefronted Goose (in the normal hieroglyphic spelling of the name Geb, often followed by the additional -b-sign) and a Nilegoose in the spelling of the name Geb occurs in the rock cut tomb of the provincial governor Sarenput II (12th Dynasty, Middle Kingdom) on the Qubba el-Hawa desert-ridge (opposite Aswan), namely on the left (southern) wall near the open doorway, in the first line of the brightly painted funerary offering formula. ^[2]

Sky goddess Nut and Geb with the head of a snake.

Notes