Nun was the god of the Ogdoad who represented the primordial waters alongside his consort Naunet.
In Egyptian creation traditions, Nun was the vast, undifferentiated watery abyss that existed before the ordered world. From these waters emerged the first mound of land, often called the benben, and creation could begin. Nun was therefore less a river or sea deity than a personification of the cosmic waters and the potential within them.
Nun and Naunet formed one of the four male-female pairs of the Ogdoad, an eight-deity group associated with Hermopolis. The other pairs represented ideas such as darkness, infinity, and hiddenness. Male Ogdoad deities were commonly represented with frog imagery, while their female counterparts could appear as serpents.
A common mix-up is confusing Nun with Kek, who represented primordial darkness, or with Heh, associated with limitless duration or infinity. Nun is also spelled Nu in some transliterations, but “Nun” is the standard English form used for this deity.