The compilation of the Book of the Dead (BD) during the New Kingdom mirrors a revision of earlier funerary and cultic texts that made an increasing use of the vignette as a signifying element. The vignettes were not merely pertinent illustrations to certain texts, but could also, due to the iconic nature of the Egyptian script itself, hold linguistic qualities that could be read. In this perspective they became images, signifying concepts or motifs from an older textual tradition. The rhetoric of the image is well illustrated in the iconographic formulation of the tree goddess in reference to BD 56 and 59. The spells are virtually identical with the exception of the opening lines that centre on Atum and Nut respectively. A retrospect into the Pyramid Texts chosen for the sarcophagus chambers of Old Kingdom pyramids reveal an old conception of these gods as embracing the king, a strong metaphor for bodily integration in terms of pregnancy and birth. This early analogue between the creator-god and the mother goddess created a decisive link between cosmogony and rebirth imagery that eventually would lead to the creation of the 'tree goddess spell' BD 59 from the older cosmogonic tradition transmitted by CT 222/BD 56. The image of the Nut-tree, connected to BD 59, was also formulated in accordance with the old tradition. From a general corpus of possibilities, this tree goddess was given an emphasized human appearance to harmonize with the old picture of the embracing goddess, prostrating over her son.