Shu

Within Heliopolitan cosmogony Shu is one of the original, primordial figures of the Ennead generation. He appears as a first-generation deity produced in the creation genealogies preserved by that tradition and functions as an operative force in creation: he separates and upholds the sky (Nut) from the earth (Geb), thereby establishing and maintaining the ordered world. Sources treat him as part of the foundational family theology of the Ennead and as sibling-spouse to Tefnut.

Source summaries and encyclopedic treatments consistently describe Shu in anthropomorphic terms as a deity depicted in Egyptian art and mythic representation. He is commonly shown as a man wearing an ostrich feather or plume (a symbol often associated with him) and is sometimes portrayed in a sustaining posture — standing between or supporting Nut (the sky) and Geb (the earth) to keep them apart. Textual summaries also link Shu with lions and with wind-symbols such as standards or flags; these motifs appear in secondary descriptions even where full iconographic detail is not provided in the supplied excerpts. Sources vary in emphasis and do not provide a single exhaustive iconographic canon in the materials given.

Shu's principal mythic action is the separation of sky and earth: he holds apart Nut and Geb, creating the atmospheric space of the ordered world. He is associated with air and the atmosphere and is credited in summaries with creating wind. Secondary associations recorded in the sources include light and the dryness or heat of sunlight (glosses that render his name as linked to dryness or to rising/emptiness), as well as symbolic links to peace and to lions. These attributions derive from encyclopedic and popular summaries of Heliopolitan theology present in the supplied materials.