Responsible For: Order, Justice, Time, Heaven and Hell, Weather. Totemic Form: Lion. Tefnut helped support the sky, and each morning received the sun on the eastern horizon. She was one of the "great nine" who sat in judgment of the dead. She was considered the goddess of the second hour of the night of the fourteenth moon. In art, Tefnut usually appeared as a lion-headed goddess with a solar disk on her head, or as a woman, or as a lion.

In the mythology of Heliopolis, the first event of creation was the emergence of the god Atum from the chaotic wastes of Nun. He gave birth to his son Shu by spitting him out, and to his daughter Tefnut by vomiting her forth. Shu and Tefnut were brought up by Nun and looked after by Atum's Eye. Atum had only one eye, and it was physically separable from him and independent in its wishes. Shu and Tefnut became separated from Atum in the dark wastes of the waters of Nun. Atum sent his Eye to look for them and eventually Shu and Tefnut came back with the Eye. While the Eye had been searching for them, Atum had replaced it with another, much brighter one. The original Eye was enraged with Atum when it returned at finding its placed usurped. So Atum took the first Eye and placed it on his forehead where it could rule the whole world he was about to create. Once, Tefnut left Egypt and went to live in the Nubian desert. Re was lonely and sent the baboon Thoth to ask her to return to Egypt. She came back and there were great celebrations in all the temples.
Goddess Tefnut
Ancient Africa
Reference: The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Wilkinson, page 183

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