An excursus on the Egyptian word nTr

An excursus on the Egyptian word nTr

One theory has been that NTR meant growth, renewing life, rebirth. It brings to mind “Nurturing”. The Egyptians used to use L as the letter/sound for R, so in one theory it used to be pronounced NTL instead of NTR. This brings to mind the Latin Natalis (birth).

Egyptians thought that the pharaohs were gods or embodiments of Horus, and they thought that the blessed dead went to heaven and became gods. The sign for God was also sometimes a falcon (“horus”) sitting on a ledge.

Ra and Horus and Montu were depicted as falcon-headed and were major deities. Mummies were purified and embalmed with Natron, a derived word, which is found as Sodium carbonate in the desert. The gods were called Neteru, gods.

Another theory is that NTR means nature, element, principle. A definition of the word [NTR] is ‘active energy that produces and creates things regular recurrence; which gives them new life and gives them back their youthful vigor’. The innate concept of the word completely covers the original meaning of the Greek word and Latin natura.

A third theory is that NTR is related to “heavens”. Chinese, Indo-Europeans, Proto-Turkics, and Sumerians all used similar words for god: Tien, Dyeus, Tengri, Dingir, respectively. And each word meant not only God but sky, day, heavens, or brightness.

Turning to Egyptian, we find that it uses a major set of gods relating to the heavens with a sound similar to NTR. These are the primordial heavenly waters Nunet, the heavens goddess Nut, and the unseen heavens’ goddess Neith. These words are related probably.

A fourth theory is that it means something pure. The objects that had holy or divine things were ritually purified. There were “pure” and “divine” tools used to prepare the NTR objects (like a mummy).

The Egyptian term for ‘god’, ntr, (Coptic noute), provides no real indication of the basic meaning of the Egyptian concept of deity. … pure. Following, one might argue that the term ntr, when used of a deity, designated his or her purity, singleness or perfection.