Nuit

Sky Goddess
The ancient Egyptian sky-goddess. She is the personification of the sky and of the heavens, the daughter of Shu and TefNuit; Mother of the sun, moon and heavenly bodies. She was the personification of the heavens and the sky, and of the region wherein the clouds formed, and in fact of every portion of the reign in which the sun rose, and traveled from east to west. Nuit was portrayed as a naked woman covered with painted stars, held up by Shu. Thus she forms the firmament above her husband Geb, the earth. Her fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions.
On coffins and in many papri we find her depicted in the form of a woman whose body is bent round in such a way as to form a semi-circle; in this attitude she represents the sky or heaven. She is supposed to have lifted her up from the embrace of Geb, and at last-named god is seen lying on the ground, with one hand raised to heaven and the other touching the earth.
The raising up of Nuit from the embrace of Geb represented the first act of creation, and the great creative power which brought it about having separated the earth from the waters which were above it, and set the sun between the earth and the sky, was now able to make the gods, and human beings, animals etc.
The goddess also appears holding up in her hands a tablet, on which stands a youthful figure who is probably intended to represent Harpocrates, or one of the many Horus gods ; in this example she is regarded as the Sky-mother who has produced her son, the Sun-god.
Nuit was the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in this world. The god Re was said to enter her mouth after setting in the evening and travel through her body during the night to be reborn from her vulva each morning. She also swallows the stars and have them reborn later.

Protector of the dead
In the death cult she plays a part in the resurrection of the dead; she is portrayed on the inside of the lids of the sarcophagi. The pharaoh was said to enter her body after death, from which he would later be resurrected. Without her favor life would be impossible for those who have left the world, and have begun their journey throughout the Tuat.
The goddess is usually represented in the form of a women who bears upon her hand a vase of water, which has the phonetic value Nu, and which indicates both her name and her nature; she sometimes wears on her head the horns and disk of the goddess Hathor, and holds in her hands a papyrus scepter and the symbol of "life." Sometimes she appears in the form which is usually identified as that of Hathor, that is a women standing in a sycamore tree and pouring out water from a vase, for the souls of the dead who come to her.
From a large number of passages found in this text of all periods we learn, from first to last, Nuit was always regarded as a friend and protector of the dead, and the deceased appealed to her for food, help, and protection just as a son appeals to his mother. In the Book of the Dead are several allusions to Nuit and to the meat and drink which provides for the deceased.
The favor of Nuit gave the deceased the power to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra rose from the Egg which was produced by Geb and Nuit. So far back as the time of Men-kau-Ra {Mycerinus} the Egyptians delighted to inscribe on the cover of the coffins of their head a portion of the following extract :------ Spreadeth herself thy mother Nuit over thee in her name of coverer of heaven, she maketh thee to be as a god without thine enemy in thy name of god, she withdraweth thee from thing every evil in her name of Defender from every evil, great lady and from Ura whom she hath brought forth;" and whenever it was possible they painted on them figures of the goddess, who was represented with her protecting wings stretched out over the deceased, and with the emblems of celestial water and air in her hands.

Allusions to The Virgin Mary
Since the mythological tree of Nuit stood at Heliopolis and was a sycamore tree under which tradition asserts that Virgin Mary sat and rested during her flight to Egypt, and there seems to be little doubt that many of the details about her wanderings in the Delta, which are recorded in the details about her wanderings of a similar class, are borrowed from the old mythology of Egypt. We may note in passing another legend, which was popular among the Copts, to effect that the Virgin Mary once hid herself and her Son from the enemies in the trunk of the sycamore at Heliopolis, and that is based upon an ancient Egyptian myth recorded by Plutarch which declared that Isis hid the body of Osiris in a tree trunk.
As the children of Nuit were not all brought forth in one place so they were not all born on the same day ; her five children, i.e., Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, were born on the five epagomenal days of the year, or as they are called in Egyptian, "the five days of the year. On the first , the birth of Osiris, on the second, was born Heru-ur, on the third was born Set, on the fourth was born Isis, and on the fifth was born Nephthys.
The care and protection which Nuit exhibited towards her son Osiris caused her to be regarded as a tender and pitiful mother, and every pious Egyptian prayed that she might do for him even as she had done for Osiris, and hoped that through her he might shine in heaven like the star Sept{Sothis} when it shines in the sky just before sunrise.

Other Aspects
The following passages from the text of Pepi I. {line 100 ff.} illustrate other aspects of the goddess:---- "Hail, Nuit, in whose "head appear the two eyes {i.e., Sun and Moon}, thou hast taken possession of Horus and art his Urt-hekau {i.e., Sky of Heliopolis}, decree thou that this Pepi shall live, and that he may not perish. O Nuit, who hast risen as a queen that thou mayest take possession of the gods and their doubles, and their flesh and their divine food, and of everything whatsoever which they have, grant thou that he may be without opposition, and that he may live.