Reteh-qabet

Reteh-qabet (in other publications sometimes also Reteh-Kabet) referred to in the Egyptian Mythology and Astronomy the boundaries of the heavens. The meaning “that pushes the chest back” can be compared to the breathing process and refers specifically to breathing shortly before birth or shortly before death. The associated entry into the means “beginning of life”, while the entry into the  means impending death.

Background
The Reteh-qabet is the beginning of a region of absolute darkness, which is understood as the edge of the sky and as the “back of the Nut”. It is the transition area to Keku-semau, the primordial darkness, which is also considered the top of the sky. In the Book of Nut, the Reteh-qabet is described as a region “in which Re never rises”. It is considered the limit of the four cardinal directions, which lie simultaneously in the primordial waters Nu and lose their meaning outside the Reteh-qabet, since it is “the place without directions”. The mythological ideas of the Egyptians come very close to the modern conception of the universe, which states that there are the well-known dimensions. Earth, with its limitation to the three dimensions of length, width and height, has lost its sole valid definition.

Literature

 * : Floor plan of the course of the stars - the so-called groove book. The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (among others), Copenhagen 2007, ISBN 978-87-635-0406-5, S. 141.