. As the air, Shu was considered to be a cooling, and thus a calming influence and pacifier. Due to the association with dry air, calm, and thus
Ma'at (
truth, justice, order, and balance), Shu was depicted as the dry air/atmosphere between the Earth and sky, separating the two realms after the event of the First Occasion. Shu was also portrayed in art as wearing an
ostrich feather. Shu was seen with between one and four feathers. The ostrich feather was symbolic of lightness and
emptiness.
Fog and
clouds were also Shu's elements and they were often called his
bones. Because of his position between the
sky and
Earth, he was also known as the
wind. In a much later myth, representing a terrible weather disaster at the end of the
Old Kingdom, it's said that
Tefnut and Shu once argued, and Tefnut left
Egypt for
Nubia (which was always more temperate). It was said that Shu quickly decided that he missed her, but she changed into a cat that destroyed any man or god that approached.
Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return. The
Greeks associated Shu with
Atlas, the primordial
Titan who held up the
celestial spheres, as they are both depicted holding up the
sky. According to the Heliopolitan cosmology, Shu and
Tefnut, the first pair of cosmic elements, created the
sky goddess,
Nut, and the
Earth god,
Geb. Shu separated Nut from Geb as they were in the act of love, creating duality in the manifest world: above and below, light and dark,
good and evil. Prior to their separation, however, Nut had given birth to the gods
Isis,
Osiris,
Nephthys (Horus) and
Set. The Egyptians believed that if Shu did not hold
Nut (sky) and
Geb (Earth) apart there would be no way for physically-manifest life to exist. Shu is mostly represented as a
man. Only in his function as a fighter and defender as the
sun god and he sometimes receives a
lion's head. He carries an
ankh, the
symbol of
life. == Art ==