What does the goose mean in ancient Egypt?

Geb, the earth god, wears a goose on his head, and one creation story has the first egg laid by the “Great Cackler”.

What the sign shows: A goose.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: For Massey the goose is the earth as provider, and the layer of the egg that is the sun.
Where you see it today: The “Meidum Geese”, painted about 2600 BCE, is one of the best-known pictures in Egyptian art.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 36 times across the book. Book III, p. 133: “Goose feet and the child-stone”; Book I, p. 18: “The hero who becomes a hawk”; Book I, p. 40: “Thinking without words”.
Signs that look like it: Vulture, Falcon and Benu bird. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “Earth itself was imaged as a Goose that rested on the Nun or the Waters of Space.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book I, p. 17)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Goose. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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