Who is Shu, the Egyptian god of air?

Shu was the god of air and light in ancient Egypt: the bright, open space between the sky and the earth. In the creation story of Heliopolis, the first god Atum brought him into being with his sister Tefnut, moisture. Their children were Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky, and by lifting Nut above Geb, Shu made room for life between them. He is shown as a man with an ostrich feather on his head, his arms raised to hold up the sky.

Who he was in Egypt: Shu was the air that fills the world, and Egyptian texts link him with life itself. Atum brought Shu and Tefnut out of himself by sneezing and spitting, a play on the sounds of their names. In the Book of the Heavenly Cow, when the aged sun god Ra withdraws into the sky, it is Shu who holds up Nut, as the great cow of heaven, while she carries him.
His signs and animals: The ostrich feather he wears is also the hieroglyph that writes his name, and the same sign stands for Ma’at, truth and right order. He could also take the form of a lion, and he and Tefnut could be shown as a pair of lions.
How Gerald Massey read him in 1907: Massey spells the name Shu, as we do, and also joins him with the warrior god Anhur as Shu-Anhur. He reads Shu as an elemental power, the breathing force of the wind and of the breeze at dawn and evening, with the panting lion as its animal sign. For Massey the lifting of the sky was not a creation made once but something seen every morning. He also finds Shu in Greek myth as Atlas, in the stars as the Archer and the Kneeler, and in the Bible, where Moses and Joshua become later forms of Shu.
What scholars say now: Shu as the air that holds up the sky, with his feather and his lion form, is well attested, and Massey’s breathing force is close to Egyptian texts that link Shu with life. His readings in the stars are not accepted: the twelve signs of the zodiac, the Archer among them, reached Egypt only under its Greek kings, the Ptolemies. Nor do scholars accept that Moses or Joshua grew out of Shu. Shu and Atlas both hold up the sky, a likeness of theme, but a borrowing between them is not established.
Where you meet him today: The Greenfield Papyrus in the British Museum shows Shu holding the arched body of Nut above Geb, helped by two ram-headed gods. Small amulets of Shu kneeling with raised arms are in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In Massey’s words: “When Shu divided heaven and earth, or Nut from Seb at morning, this went on for ever: Nut descended on a visit to her lover every night.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book VII, p. 406)
In the app: Ask › The Guide. In the app, the Guide answers questions about Shu with Massey’s own passages, and the Read the hieroglyphs course teaches you to read his name, written with the feather of Ma’at.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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