The oldest representation in a fragmentaryrelief of the god was as an anthropomorphic bearded being accompanied by his name, and dating from kingDjoser's reign, during theThird Dynasty, and was found in Heliopolis.[citation needed] However, the god never received a temple of his own. In later times he could also be depicted as aram, abull or acrocodile (the latter in a vignette of theBook of the Dead of the lady Heryweben in theEgyptian Museum,Cairo).[citation needed]
Geb was frequently feared as father ofsnakes (one of the names for snake wass3-t3 – "son of the earth"). In one of theCoffin Text spells Geb was described as father of the mythological snakeNehebkau of primeval times.[citation needed] Geb also often occurs as a primeval divine king ofEgypt from whom his sonOsiris and his grandsonHorus inherited the land after many conflicts with the disruptive godSet, brother and killer of Osiris. Geb could also be regarded as personified fertile earth and barren desert, the latter containing the dead or setting them free from their tombs, metaphorically described as "Geb opening his jaws", or imprisoning those there not worthy to go to the fertile North-Eastern heavenlyField of Reeds. In the latter case, one of his otherworldly attributes was an ominous jackal-headed stave (calledwsr.tMighty One') rising from the ground onto which enemies could be bound.[citation needed]
In the HeliopolitanEnnead (a group of nine gods created in the beginning by the one godAtum or Ra), Geb is thehusband ofNut, thesky or visible daytime and nightly firmament, the son of the earlier primordialelementsTefnut (moisture) andShu ("emptiness"), and the father to the four lesser gods of the system –Osiris,Seth,Isis andNephthys. In this context, Geb was believed to have originally been engaged with Nut and had to be separated from her by Shu, god of the air.[4] Consequently, in mythological depictions, Geb was shown as a man reclining, sometimes with his phallus still pointed towards Nut. Geb and Nut together formed the permanent boundary between the primeval waters and the newly created world.[5]
As time progressed, the deity became more associated with the habitableland of Egypt and also as one of its early rulers. As achthonic deity[6] he (likeMin) became naturally associated with theunderworld, fresh waters and withvegetation –barley being said to grow upon his ribs – and was depicted withplants and other green patches on hisbody.[7]
His association with vegetation, healing[7] and sometimes with the underworld and royalty brought Geb the occasional interpretation that he was the husband ofRenenutet, a minor goddess of the harvest and also mythological caretaker (the meaning of her name is "nursing snake") of the young king in the shape of acobra, who herself could also be regarded as the mother ofNehebkau, a primeval snake god associated with the underworld. He is also equated by classical authors as theGreekTitanCronus.[citation needed]
Ptah and Ra, creator deities, usually begin the list of divine ancestors. There is speculation between Shu and Geb and who was the first god-king of Egypt. The story of how Shu, Geb, and Nut were separated in order to create the cosmos is now being interpreted in more human terms; exposing the hostility and sexual jealousy. Between the father-son jealousy and Shu rebelling against the divine order, Geb challenges Shu's leadership. Geb takes Shu's wife, Tefnut, as his chief queen, separating Shu from his sister-wife, just as Shu had previously done to him. In theBook of the Heavenly Cow, it is implied that Geb is the heir of the departing sun god. After Geb passed on the throne to Osiris, his son, he then took on a role of a judge in the Divine Tribunal of the gods.[8]
The godShu (the air) separating to the goddessNut (the Sky) and the god Geb (the Earth).
Some Egyptologists (specifically Jan Bergman, Terence Duquesne and Richard H. Wilkinson) have stated that Geb was associated with a mythological divine creatorgoose, who had laid aworld egg from which thesun and/or theworld had sprung. This theory is assumed to be incorrect and to be a result of confusing the divine name "Geb" with that of aWhitefronted Goose (Anser albifrons), also called originallygb(b): "lame one, stumbler".[9]
This bird-sign is used only as aphonogram in order to spell the name of the god (H.te Velde, in:Lexikon der Aegyptologie II, lemma: Geb). An alternative ancient name for this goose species wastrp meaning similarly 'walk like a drunk', 'stumbler'. The Whitefronted Goose is never found as a cultic symbol or holy bird of Geb. The mythological creator 'goose' referred to above, was calledGengen-Wer meaning "Great Honker" and always depicted as a Nile Goose/Fox Goose orEgyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiacus) who ornithologically belongs to a separate genus and whose usual Egyptian name wassmn, Copticsmon. A coloured vignette irrefutably depicts a Nile Goose with an opened beak in a context of solar creation on a mythological papyrus dating from the 21st Dynasty.[10]
Similar images of this divine bird are to be found ontemple walls (Karnak, Deir el-Bahari), showing a scene of the king standing on a papyrus raft and ritually plucking papyrus for the Theban godAmun-Re-Kamutef. The latter Theban creator god could be embodied in a Nile goose, but never in a Whitefronted Goose. InUnderworld Books a diacritic goose-sign (most probably denoting then anAnser albifrons) was sometimes depicted on top of the head of a standing anonymous male anthropomorphic deity, pointing to Geb's identity. Geb himself was never depicted as a Nile Goose, as later was Amun, called on someNew Kingdom stelae explicitly: "Amun, the beautifulsmn- goose" (Nile Goose).[10]
The only clear pictorial confusion between thehieroglyphs of a Whitefronted Goose (in the normal hieroglyphic spelling of the name Geb, often followed by the additional -b-sign) and a Nile Goose in the spelling of the name Geb occurs in therock cut tomb of the provincial governorSarenput II (12th Dynasty, Middle Kingdom) on the Qubba el-Hawa desert-ridge (oppositeAswan), namely on the left (southern) wall near the open doorway, in the first line of the brightly painted funerary offering formula. This confusion is to be compared with the frequent hacking out byAkhenaten's agents of the sign of the Pintail Duck (meaning 'son') in the royal title 'Son of Re', especially in Theban temples, where they confused the duck sign with that of a Nile Goose regarded as a form of the then forbidden god Amon.[10]
In Greco-Roman Egypt, Geb was equated with the Greek titanCronus, because he held a quite similar position in the Greek pantheon, as the father of the godsZeus,Hades, andPoseidon, as Geb did in Egyptian mythology. This equation is particularly well attested inTebtunis in the southernFayyum: Geb and Cronus were here part of a local version of the cult ofSobek, the crocodile god.[11] The equation was shown on the one hand in the local iconography of the gods, in which Geb was depicted as a man with attributes of Cronus and Cronus with attributes of Geb.[12] On the other hand, the priests of the local main temple identified themselves in Egyptian texts as priests of "Soknebtunis-Geb", but in Greek texts as priests of "Soknebtunis-Cronus".[citation needed] Accordingly, Egyptian names formed with the name of the god Geb were just as popular among local villagers as Greek names derived from Cronus, especially the name "Kronion".[13]
^ C. Wolterman, "On the Names of Birds and Hieroglyphic Sign-List G 22, G 35 and H 3" in: "Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch genootschap Ex Oriente Lux" no. 32 (1991–1992)(Leiden, 1993), p. 122, note 8
^abctext: Drs. Carles Wolterman, Amstelveen, Holland
^Kockelmann, Holger (2017).Der Herr der Seen, Sümpfe und Flußläufe. Untersuchungen zum Gott Sobek und den ägyptischen Krokodilgötter-Kulten von den Anfängen bis zur Römerzeit [The lord of lakes, swamps and rivers. Studies on the god Sobek and the Egyptian crocodile god cults from the beginnings to Roman times] (in German). Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 81–88.ISBN978-3-447-10810-2.
^Rondot, Vincent (2013).Derniers visages des dieux dʼÉgypte. Iconographies, panthéons et cultes dans le Fayoum hellénisé des IIe–IIIe siècles de notre ère [Last faces of the gods of Egypt. Iconographies, pantheons and cults in the Hellenized Fayoum of the 2nd–3rd centuries AD] (in French). Paris: Presses de lʼuniversité Paris-Sorbonne; Éditions du Louvre. pp. 75–80,122–127,241–246.
^Sippel, Benjamin (2020).Gottesdiener und Kamelzüchter: Das Alltags- und Sozialleben der Sobek-Priester im kaiserzeitlichen Fayum [Worshipers and camel breeders: The everyday and social life of the Sobek priests in Imperial Fayum] (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 73–78.ISBN978-3-447-11485-1.
