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123-470: The city's name most probably comes from Isis's epithet mwt-nTr , "Mother of God" ( Horus ). In Roman Egypt , Menouthis was widely known as an oracular and healing cult centre of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis and it drew devotees from a wide region. The temple of Isis in the city contained religious statues and was decorated with hieroglyphs . In 391 AD the city's Serapeum was demolished during

246-455: A crab , and according to Plutarch 's account used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a phallus to conceive her son (older Egyptian accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving). After becoming pregnant with Horus, Isis fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set , who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son. There Isis bore

369-453: A stone palette from the Naqada ;II period of prehistory ( c.  3500–3200 BC ), shows the silhouette of a cow's head with inward-curving horns surrounded by stars. The palette suggests that this cow was also linked with the sky, as were several goddesses from later times who were represented in this form: Hathor, Mehet-Weret , and Nut . Despite these earlier precedents, Hathor

492-409: A blissful afterlife. In New Kingdom funerary texts and artwork, the afterlife was often illustrated as a pleasant, fertile garden, over which Hathor sometimes presided. The welcoming afterlife goddess was often portrayed as a goddess in the form of a tree, giving water to the deceased. Nut most commonly filled this role, but the tree goddess was sometimes called Hathor instead. The afterlife also had

615-445: A child-god figure for the funerary gods Osiris and Isis. Unlike Horus, who was traditionally depicted as an adult, Khonsu, the lunar god, was inherently associated with youth. The cults of Harpocrates and Khonsu originally merged in a sanctuary within the Mut enclosure at Karnak. This sanctuary, later transformed into a mammisi (birth house) under the 21st Dynasty, celebrated the divine birth of

738-577: A complex relationship with those of sistra. Both styles of sistrum can bear the Hathor mask on the handle, and Hathoric columns often incorporate the naos sistrum shape above the goddess's head. During the Early Dynastic Period, Neith was the preeminent goddess at the royal court, while in the Fourth Dynasty, Hathor became the goddess most closely linked with the king. Sneferu , the founder of

861-484: A creation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation. The version from Hathor's temple at Dendera emphasizes that she, as a female solar deity, was the first being to emerge from the primordial waters that preceded creation, and her life-giving light and milk nourished all living things. Hathor's maternal aspects can be compared with those of Isis and Mut, yet there are many contrasts between them. Isis's devotion to her husband and care for their child represented

984-532: A curling wig taken from Hathor's iconography. Which goddess these images represent is not known, but the Egyptians adopted her iconography and came to regard her as an independent deity, Qetesh , whom they associated with Hathor. Hathor was closely connected with the Sinai Peninsula , which was not considered part of Egypt proper but was the site of Egyptian mines for copper, turquoise , and malachite during

1107-477: A different way. She used names and titles that linked her to a variety of goddesses, including Hathor, so as to legitimize her rule in what was normally a male position. She built several temples to Hathor and placed her own mortuary temple , which incorporated a chapel dedicated to the goddess, at Deir el-Bahari , which had been a cult site of Hathor since the Middle Kingdom. The preeminence of Amun during

1230-505: A divine son, Horus. As birth, death and rebirth are recurrent themes in Egyptian lore and cosmology, it is not particularly strange that Horus also is the brother of Osiris and Isis , by Nut and Geb , together with Nephthys and Set . This elder Horus is called Hrw-wr - Hourou'Ur - as opposed to Hrw-P-Khrd - the child Horus, at some point adopted by the Greeks as Harpocrates . Since Horus

1353-442: A finger in his mouth sitting on a lotus with his mother. In the form of a youth, Horus was referred to as nfr ḥr.w "Good Horus", transliterated Neferhor, Nephoros or Nopheros (reconstructed as naːfiru ħaːruw ). The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus or Ra . The symbol is seen on images of Horus' mother, Isis, and on other deities associated with her. In

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1476-552: A healing aspect to her character, as she was said to have restored Horus's missing eye or eyes after Set attacked him. In the version of this episode in "The Contendings of Horus and Set", Hathor finds Horus with his eyes torn out and heals the wounds with gazelle's milk. Beginning in the Late Period (664–323 BC), temples focused on the worship of a divine family: an adult male deity, his wife, and their immature son. Satellite buildings, known as mammisis , were built in celebration of

1599-422: A historical perspective, Harpocrates is an artificial creation, originating from the priesthood of Thebes and later gaining popularity in the cults of other cities. His first known depiction dates to a stele from Mendes, erected during the reign of Sheshonq III (22nd Libyan Dynasty), commemorating a donation by the flutist Ânkhhorpakhered. Initially, Harpocrates originated as a duplicate of Khonsu-pa-khered, providing

1722-413: A more socially acceptable form of love than Hathor's uninhibited sexuality, and Mut's character was more authoritative than sexual. The text of the 1st century CE Insinger Papyrus likens a faithful wife, the mistress of a household, to Mut, while comparing Hathor to a strange woman who tempts a married man. Like Meskhenet , another goddess who presided over birth, Hathor was connected with shai ,

1845-466: A sexual aspect. In the Osiris myth, the murdered god Osiris was resurrected when he copulated with Isis and conceived Horus. In solar ideology, Ra's union with the sky goddess allowed his own rebirth. Sex therefore enabled the rebirth of the deceased, and goddesses like Isis and Hathor served to rouse the deceased to new life. But they merely stimulated the male deities' regenerative powers, rather than playing

1968-460: A single entity". Hathor's diversity reflects the range of traits that the Egyptians associated with goddesses. More than any other deity, she exemplifies the Egyptian perception of femininity . Hathor was given the epithets "mistress of the sky" and "mistress of the stars", and was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which

2091-558: A sistrum or a menat necklace. The sistrum came in two varieties: a simple loop shape or the more complex naos sistrum, which was shaped to resemble a naos shrine and flanked by volutes resembling the antennae of the Bat emblem. Mirrors were another of her symbols, because in Egypt they were often made of gold or bronze and therefore symbolized the sun disk, and because they were connected with beauty and femininity. Some mirror handles were made in

2214-462: A sycamore tree, Hathor was usually shown with the upper body of her human form emerging from the trunk. Like other goddesses, Hathor might carry a stalk of papyrus as a staff, though she could instead hold a was staff, a symbol of power that was usually restricted to male deities. The only goddesses who used the was were those, like Hathor, who were linked with the Eye of Ra. She also commonly carried

2337-402: A variant tradition that assigns different fathers to Nut's children: Osiris and Horus-Wer are attributed to Nut and Ra, Isis to Nut and Thoth, while Nephthys and Set are said to be the children of Nut and Geb. Additionally, similar to other manifestations of Horus, Horus-Wer is sometimes regarded as the child of Isis and Osiris, conceived by the pair while still within the womb of Nut. Horus-Wer

2460-402: A vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity . Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to

2583-403: Is "the central element" of seven " gold , faience , carnelian and lapis lazuli " bracelets found on the mummy of Shoshenq II . The Wedjat "was intended to protect the king [here] in the afterlife" and to ward off evil. Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint the symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel. Horus was also thought to protect the sky. Horus

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2706-409: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This geography of Egypt article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Horus Horus ( / h ɔː r ə s / ), also known as Hor ( / h ɔː r / ) in Ancient Egyptian , is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection,

2829-480: Is able to escape one of the possible violent deaths that the Seven Hathors have foretold for him, and while the end of the story is missing, the surviving portions imply that the prince can escape his fate with the help of the gods. Hathor was connected with trade and foreign lands, possibly because her role as a sky goddess linked her with stars and hence navigation, and because she was believed to protect ships on

2952-526: Is above, over". As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic varieties variously as /hɔr/ or /ħoːɾ/ (Ϩⲱⲣ) and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hō̂ros (pronounced at the time as /hɔ̂ːros/ ). It also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric name forms such as Siese "son of Isis" and Harsiese "Horus, Son of Isis". The pharaoh was associated with many specific deities. He

3075-407: Is called the mistress of music, dance, garlands, myrrh , and drunkenness . In hymns and temple reliefs, musicians play tambourines , harps , lyres , and sistra in Hathor's honor. The sistrum , a rattle-like instrument, was particularly important in Hathor's worship. Sistra had erotic connotations and, by extension, alluded to the creation of new life. These aspects of Hathor were linked with

3198-628: Is not unambiguously mentioned or depicted until the Fourth Dynasty ( c.  2613–2494 BC ) of the Old Kingdom , although several artifacts that refer to her may date to the Early Dynastic Period ( c.  3100–2686 BC ). When Hathor does clearly appear, her horns curve outward, rather than inward like those in Predynastic art. A bovine deity with inward-curving horns appears on

3321-475: Is the goddess with whom Khonsu mates to enable creation. Hathor could be the consort of many male gods, of whom Ra was only the most prominent. Mut was the usual consort of Amun , the preeminent deity during the New Kingdom who was often linked with Ra. But Mut was rarely portrayed alongside Amun in contexts related to sex or fertility, and in those circumstances, Hathor or Isis stood at his side instead. In

3444-641: Is today one of the best-preserved Egyptian temples from that time. As the rulers of the Old Kingdom made an effort to develop towns in Upper and Middle Egypt , several cult centers of Hathor were founded across the region, at sites such as Cusae , Akhmim , and Naga ed-Der . In the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BC) her cult statue from Dendera was periodically carried to the Theban necropolis. During

3567-805: The Greeks , specified that the one "Horus" whom the Egyptians equated with the Greek Apollo was in fact "Horus the Elder", who is distinct from Horus the son of Osiris and Isis (that would make him "the Younger"). Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr.w "Falcon", 𓅃; the original pronunciation has been reconstructed as /ˈħaːɾuw/ in Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian , /ˈħaːɾəʔ/ in later Middle Egyptian , and /ˈħoːɾ(ə)/ in Late Egyptian . Additional meanings are thought to have been "the distant one" or "one who

3690-530: The Narmer Palette from near the start of Egyptian history, both atop the palette and on the belt or apron of the king, Narmer . The Egyptologist Henry George Fischer suggested this deity may be Bat , a goddess who was later depicted with a woman's face and inward-curling horns, seemingly reflecting the curve of the cow horns. The Egyptologist Lana Troy, however, identifies a passage in the Pyramid Texts from

3813-511: The Nile Delta , such as Yamu and Terenuthis , also had temples to her. Dendera, Hathor's oldest temple in Upper Egypt, dates to at least to the Fourth Dynasty. After the end of the Old Kingdom it surpassed her Memphite temples in importance. Many kings made additions to the temple complex through Egyptian history. The last version of the temple was built in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods and

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3936-537: The Old Kingdom ( c.  2686–2181 BC ). With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers, she became one of Egypt's most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than to any other goddess; her most prominent temple was Dendera in Upper Egypt . She was also worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connected her with foreign lands, such as Nubia and Canaan , and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones, and some of

4059-555: The Ptolemaic period (305–30 BC), when Greeks governed Egypt and their religion developed a complex relationship with that of Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty adopted and modified the Egyptian ideology of kingship. Beginning with Arsinoe II , wife of Ptolemy II , the Ptolemies closely linked their queens with Isis and with several Greek goddesses, particularly their own goddess of love and sexuality, Aphrodite . Nevertheless, when

4182-557: The Set animal to write his serekh name in place of the falcon hieroglyph representing Horus. His successor Khasekhemwy used both Horus and Set in the writing of his serekh. This evidence has prompted conjecture that the Second Dynasty saw a clash between the followers of the Horus king and the worshippers of Set led by Seth-Peribsen. Khasekhemwy's use of the two animal symbols would then represent

4305-408: The afterlife . Hathor was often depicted as a cow , symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness , a cobra , or a sycamore tree . Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she may not have appeared until

4428-547: The persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire , and in the following year the temple of Isis was closed and partially dismantled, with Christian Tabennesiote monks taking over the temple's country estates. In 413 AD, at a site opposite the temple, Pope Theophilus of Alexandria built a Christian shrine dedicated to the Four Evangelists . The shrine became home to the bones of the saints Cyrus and John , which were moved there from Alexandria by Cyril of Alexandria . During

4551-516: The 5th century the Isis temple continued to be used for clandestine sacrifices and incubation rites . Coptic tradition says that the temple remained in use alongside the Christian shrine and the worship of Egyptian gods and their statues continued in the city. However, as time went by the traditional healing function of the temple was transferred to the Christian shrine. The temple was demolished in 484 AD and

4674-584: The Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon , most likely a lanner falcon or peregrine falcon , or as a man with a falcon head. The earliest recorded form of Horus is the tutelary deity of Nekhen in Upper Egypt , who is the first known national god, specifically related to the ruling pharaoh who in time came to be regarded as a manifestation of Horus in life and Osiris in death. The most commonly encountered family relationship describes Horus as

4797-506: The Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love". Egyptian religion celebrated the sensory pleasures of life, believed to be among the gods' gifts to humanity. Egyptians ate, drank, danced, and played music at their religious festivals. They perfumed the air with flowers and incense . Many of Hathor's epithets link her to celebration; she

4920-521: The Egyptian concept of fate , particularly when she took the form of the Seven Hathors. In two New Kingdom works of fiction, the " Tale of Two Brothers " and the " Tale of the Doomed Prince ", the Hathors appear at the births of major characters and foretell the manner of their deaths. The Egyptians tended to think of fate as inexorable. Yet in "The Tale of the Doomed Prince", the prince who is its protagonist

5043-431: The Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was "wedjat" ( wɟt ). It was the eye of one of the earliest Egyptian deities, Wadjet , who later became associated with Bastet , Mut , and Hathor as well. Wadjet was a solar deity and this symbol began as her all-seeing eye. In early artwork, Hathor is also depicted with this eye. Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of Horus. The Wedjat or Eye of Horus

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5166-613: The Elder’), was the mature representation of the god Horus. This manifestation of Horus was especially worshipped at Letopolis in Lower Egypt. The Greeks identified him with the Greek god Apollo. His titles include: 'foremost of the two eyes', 'great god', 'lord of Ombos', 'possessor of the ijt-knife, who resides in Letopolis', 'Shu, son of Ra', 'Horus, strong of arm', 'great of power' and 'lord of

5289-464: The Festival of Victory included the performance of a sacred drama which commemorated the victory of Horus over Set. The main actor in this drama was the king of Egypt himself, who played the role of Horus. His adversary was a hippopotamus, who played the role of Set. In the course of the ritual, the king would strike the hippopotamus with a harpoon. The destruction of the hippopotamus by the king commemorated

5412-402: The Fourth Dynasty, may have built a temple to her, and Neferhetepes , a daughter of Djedefra , was the first recorded priestess of Hathor . Old Kingdom rulers donated resources only to temples dedicated to particular kings or to deities closely connected with kingship. Hathor was one of the few deities to receive such donations. Late Old Kingdom rulers especially promoted the cult of Hathor in

5535-549: The Greeks referred to Egyptian gods by the names of their own gods (a practice called interpretatio graeca ), they sometimes called Hathor Aphrodite. Traits of Isis, Hathor, and Aphrodite were all combined to justify the treatment of Ptolemaic queens as goddesses. Thus, the poet Callimachus alluded to the myth of Hathor's lost lock of hair in the Aetia when praising Berenice II for sacrificing her own hair to Aphrodite, and iconographic traits that Isis and Hathor shared, such as

5658-464: The Hathor-cow suckling the king date to his reign, and several priestesses of Hathor were depicted as though they were his wives, although he may not have actually married them. In the course of the Middle Kingdom, queens were increasingly seen as directly embodying the goddess, just as the king embodied Ra. The emphasis on the queen as Hathor continued through the New Kingdom. Queens were portrayed with

5781-457: The Herdsman", a herdsman encounters a hairy, animal-like goddess in a marsh and reacts with terror. On another day he encounters her as a nude, alluring woman. Most Egyptologists who study this story think this woman is Hathor or a goddess like her, one who can be wild and dangerous or benign and erotic. Thomas Schneider interprets the text as implying that between his two encounters with the goddess

5904-449: The Middle and New Kingdoms. One of Hathor's epithets, "Lady of Mefkat ", may have referred specifically to turquoise or to all blue-green minerals. She was also called "Lady of Faience ", a blue-green ceramic that Egyptians likened to turquoise. Hathor was also worshipped at various quarries and mining sites in Egypt's Eastern Desert , such as the amethyst mines of Wadi el-Hudi, where she

6027-511: The New Kingdom gave greater visibility to his consort Mut, and in the course of the period, Isis began appearing in roles that traditionally belonged to Hathor alone, such as that of the goddess in the solar barque. Despite the growing prominence of these deities, Hathor remained important, particularly in relation to fertility, sexuality, and queenship, throughout the New Kingdom. After the New Kingdom, Isis increasingly overshadowed Hathor and other goddesses as she took on their characteristics. In

6150-646: The New Kingdom, Hathor was increasingly overshadowed by Isis, but she continued to be venerated until the extinction of ancient Egyptian religion in the early centuries AD. Images of cattle appear frequently in the artwork of Predynastic Egypt (before c.  3100 BC ), as do images of women with upraised, curved arms, reminiscent of the shape of bovine horns. Both types of imagery may represent goddesses connected with cattle . Cows are venerated in many cultures , including ancient Egypt, as symbols of motherhood and nourishment, because they care for their calves and provide humans with milk. The Gerzeh Palette ,

6273-567: The New Kingdom. Because Isis adopted the same headdress during the New Kingdom, the two goddesses can be distinguished only if labeled in writing. When in the role of Imentet, Hathor wore the emblem of the west upon her head instead of the horned headdress. The Seven Hathors were sometimes portrayed as a set of seven cows, accompanied by a minor sky and afterlife deity called the Bull of the West. Some animals other than cattle could represent Hathor. The uraeus

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6396-509: The Nile and in the seas beyond Egypt as she protected the barque of Ra in the sky. The mythological wandering of the Eye goddess in Nubia or Libya gave her a connection with those lands as well. Egypt maintained trade relations with the coastal cities of Syria and Canaan , particularly Byblos , placing Egyptian religion in contact with the religions of that region . At some point, perhaps as early as

6519-404: The Old Kingdom, the Egyptians began to refer to the patron goddess of Byblos, Baalat Gebal , as a local form of Hathor. So strong was Hathor's link to Byblos that texts from Dendera say she resided there. The Egyptians sometimes equated Anat , an aggressive Canaanite goddess who came to be worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom, with Hathor. Some Canaanite artworks depict a nude goddess with

6642-550: The Osirian family. The winged sun of Horus of Edfu is a symbol in associated with divinity , royalty , and power in ancient Egypt. The winged sun is symbolic also of the eternal soul. When placed above the temple doors it served as a reminder to the people of their eternal nature. The winged sun was depicted on the top of pylons in the ancient temples throughout Egypt. Her-em-akhet (or Horemakhet), ( Harmakhis in Greek), represented

6765-477: The Osiris myth emerged during the Old Kingdom. Even after Isis was firmly established as Horus's mother, Hathor continued to appear in this role, especially when nursing the pharaoh. Images of the Hathor-cow with a child in a papyrus thicket represented his mythological upbringing in a secluded marsh. Goddesses' milk was a sign of divinity and royal status. Thus, images in which Hathor nurses the pharaoh represent his right to rule. Hathor's relationship with Horus gave

6888-543: The Southern Sycamore was her main temple in Memphis. At that site she was described as the daughter of the city's main deity, Ptah . The cult of Ra and Atum at Heliopolis, northeast of Memphis, included a temple to Hathor-Nebethetepet that was probably built in the Middle Kingdom. A willow and a sycamore tree stood near the sanctuary and may have been worshipped as manifestations of the goddess. A few cities farther north in

7011-540: The Vulva". At Ra's cult center of Heliopolis , Hathor-Nebethetepet was worshipped as his consort, and the Egyptologist Rudolf Anthes argued that Hathor's name referred to a mythical "house of Horus" at Heliopolis that was connected with the ideology of kingship. She was one of many goddesses to take the role of the Eye of Ra, a feminine personification of the disk of the sun and an extension of Ra's own power. Ra

7134-490: The afterlife, just as men joined the following of Osiris. In the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC), Egyptians began to add Hathor's name to that of deceased women in place of that of Osiris. In some cases, women were called "Osiris-Hathor", indicating that they benefited from the revivifying power of both deities. In these late periods, Hathor was sometimes said to rule the afterlife as Osiris did. Hathor

7257-402: The afterlife. After the New Kingdom, Set was still considered the lord of the desert and its oases. In many versions of the story, Horus and Set divide the realm between them. This division can be equated with any of several fundamental dualities that the Egyptians saw in their world. Horus may receive the fertile lands around the Nile, the core of Egyptian civilization, in which case Set takes

7380-553: The barren desert or the foreign lands that are associated with it; Horus may rule the earth while Set dwells in the sky; and each god may take one of the two traditional halves of the country, Upper and Lower Egypt, in which case either god may be connected with either region. Yet in the Memphite Theology , Geb , as judge, first apportions the realm between the claimants and then reverses himself, awarding sole control to Horus. In this peaceable union, Horus and Set are reconciled, and

7503-476: The beginning of the Middle Kingdom, Mentuhotep   II established a permanent cult center for her in the necropolis at Deir el-Bahari. The nearby village of Deir el-Medina , home to the tomb workers of the necropolis during the New Kingdom, also contained temples of Hathor. One continued to function and was periodically rebuilt as late as the Ptolemaic Period, centuries after the village was abandoned. In

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7626-462: The birth of the local child deity. The child god represented the cyclical renewal of the cosmos and an archetypal heir to the kingship. Hathor was the mother in many of these local divine triads . At Dendera, the mature Horus of Edfu was the father and Hathor the mother, while their child was Ihy , a god whose name meant "sistrum-player" and who personified the jubilation associated with the instrument. At Kom Ombo , Hathor's local form, Tasenetnofret,

7749-532: The bovine horns and vulture headdress, appeared on images portraying Ptolemaic queens as Aphrodite. More temples were dedicated to Hathor than to any other Egyptian goddess. During the Old Kingdom her most important center of worship was in the region of Memphis , where "Hathor of the Sycamore" was worshipped at many sites throughout the Memphite Necropolis . During the New Kingdom era, the temple of Hathor of

7872-401: The central role. Ancient Egyptians prefixed the names of the deceased with Osiris's name to connect them with his resurrection . For example, a woman named Henutmehyt would be dubbed "Osiris-Henutmehyt". Over time they increasingly associated the deceased with both male and female divine powers. As early as the late Old Kingdom, women were sometimes said to join the worshippers of Hathor in

7995-418: The child god Panebtawy. In his Moralia, the Greek philosopher Plutarch mentions three additional parentage traditions that supposedly existed for Horus-Wer during the Ptolemaic period. According to Plutarch's account, Horus-Wer was believed to be the son of Geb and Nut, born on the second of the five intercalary days at the end of the year, after Osiris and before Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Plutarch also records

8118-475: The cult of Bat in the neighboring region of Hu , so that in the Middle Kingdom ( c.  2055–1650 BC ) the two deities fused into one. The theology surrounding the pharaoh in the Old Kingdom, unlike that of earlier times, focused heavily on the sun god Ra as king of the gods and father and patron of the earthly king. Hathor ascended with Ra and became his mythological wife, and thus divine mother of

8241-473: The dawn and the early morning sun. He was often depicted as a sphinx with the head of a man (like the Great Sphinx of Giza ), or as a hieracosphinx , a creature with a lion's body and a falcon's head and wings, sometimes with the head of a lion or ram (the latter providing a link to the god Khepri , the rising sun). It was believed that he was the inspiration for the Great Sphinx of Giza , constructed under

8364-537: The defeat of Set by Horus, which also legitimised the king. It is unlikely that the king attended the Festival of Victory every year; in many cases he was probably represented by a priest. It is also unlikely that a real hippopotamus was used in the festival every year; in many cases it was probably represented by a model. Hathor Hathor ( Ancient Egyptian : ḥwt-ḥr , lit.   'House of Horus', Ancient Greek : Ἁθώρ Hathōr , Coptic : ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ , Meroitic : 𐦠𐦴𐦫𐦢 ‎ Atari )

8487-407: The dualities that they represent have been resolved into a united whole. Through this resolution, the order is restored after the tumultuous conflict. Egyptologists have often tried to connect the conflict between the two gods with political events early in Egypt's history or prehistory. The cases in which the combatants divide the kingdom, and the frequent association of the paired Horus and Set with

8610-460: The eye goddess, who would later give birth to him. Ra gave rise to his daughter, the eye goddess, who in turn gave rise to him, her son, in a cycle of constant regeneration. The Eye of Ra protected the sun god from his enemies and was often represented as a uraeus , or rearing cobra , or as a lioness. A form of the Eye of Ra known as "Hathor of the Four Faces", represented by a set of four cobras,

8733-435: The form of Hathor, rebels against Ra's control and rampages freely in a foreign land: Libya west of Egypt or Nubia to the south. Weakened by the loss of his Eye, Ra sends another god, such as Thoth , to bring her back to him. Once pacified, the goddess returns to become the consort of the sun god or of the god who brings her back. The two aspects of the Eye goddess—violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful—reflected

8856-428: The headdress of Hathor beginning in the late Eighteenth Dynasty. An image of the sed festival of Amenhotep III , meant to celebrate and renew his rule, shows the king together with Hathor and his queen Tiye , which could mean that the king symbolically married the goddess in the course of the festival. Hatshepsut , a woman who ruled as a pharaoh in the early New Kingdom, emphasized her relationship to Hathor in

8979-439: The herdsman has done something to pacify her. In " The Contendings of Horus and Set ", a New Kingdom short story about the dispute between those two gods , Ra is upset after being insulted by another god, Babi , and lies on his back alone. After some time, Hathor exposes her genitals to Ra, making him laugh and get up again to perform his duties as ruler of the gods. Life and order were thought to be dependent on Ra's activity, and

9102-653: The inundation therefore incorporated drink, music, and dance as a way to appease the returning goddess. A text from the Temple of Edfu says of Hathor, "the gods play the sistrum for her, the goddesses dance for her to dispel her bad temper." A hymn to the goddess Raet-Tawy as a form of Hathor at the temple of Medamud describes the Festival of Drunkenness (Tekh Festival) as part of her mythic return to Egypt. Women carry bouquets of flowers, drunken revelers play drums, and people and animals from foreign lands dance for her as she enters

9225-492: The king. The text describes these exotic goods as Hathor's gift to the pharaoh. Egyptian expeditions to mine gold in Nubia introduced her cult to the region during the Middle and New Kingdoms, and New Kingdom pharaohs built several temples to her in the portions of Nubia that they ruled. Although the Pyramid Texts, the earliest Egyptian funerary texts , rarely mention her, Hathor was invoked in private tomb inscriptions from

9348-467: The late Old Kingdom that connects Hathor with the "apron" of the king, reminiscent of the goddess on Narmer's garments, and suggests the goddess on the Narmer Palette is Hathor rather than Bat. In the Fourth Dynasty, Hathor rose rapidly to prominence. She supplanted an early crocodile god who was worshipped at Dendera in Upper Egypt to become Dendera's patron deity , and she increasingly absorbed

9471-464: The late periods of Egyptian history, the form of Hathor from Dendera and the form of Horus from Edfu were considered husband and wife and in different versions of the myth of the Distant Goddess, Hathor-Raettawy was the consort of Montu and Hathor-Tefnut the consort of Shu. Hathor's sexual side was seen in some short stories . In a cryptic fragment of a Middle Kingdom story, known as "The Tale of

9594-496: The lioness goddess Sekhmet and massacres the rebellious humans, but Ra decides to prevent her from killing all humanity. He orders that beer be dyed red and poured out over the land. The Eye goddess drinks the beer, mistaking it for blood, and in her inebriated state reverts to being the benign and beautiful Hathor. Related to this story is the myth of the Distant Goddess, from the Late and Ptolemaic periods. The Eye goddess, sometimes in

9717-483: The myth of the Eye of Ra. The Eye was pacified by beer in the story of the Destruction of Mankind. In some versions of the Distant Goddess myth, the wandering Eye's wildness abated when she was appeased with products of civilization like music, dance, and wine. The water of the annual flooding of the Nile , colored red by sediment, was likened to wine, and to the red-dyed beer in the Destruction of Mankind. Festivals during

9840-458: The north. The rulers of Nekhen, where Horus was the patron deity, are generally believed to have unified Upper Egypt, including Nagada, under their sway. Set was associated with Nagada, so it is possible that the divine conflict dimly reflects an enmity between the cities in the distant past. Much later, at the end of the Second Dynasty ( c.  2890–2686 BCE ), Pharaoh Seth-Peribsen used

9963-483: The offspring of these forces, then identifying him with Atum himself, and finally identifying the Pharaoh with Horus, the Pharaoh theologically had dominion over all the world. In one tale, Horus is born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis , which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish / Medjed , or sometimes depicted as instead by

10086-569: The order of Khafre , whose head it depicts. Other forms of Horus include: The Festival of Victory (Egyptian: Heb Nekhtet) was an annual Egyptian festival dedicated to the god Horus. The Festival of Victory was celebrated at the Temple of Horus at Edfu, and took place during the second month of the Season of the Emergence (or the sixth month of the Egyptian calendar ). The ceremonies which took place during

10209-449: The patron of Lower Egypt , had battled for Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious, until eventually, the gods sided with Horus. As Horus was the ultimate victor he became known as ḥr.w or "Horus the Great", but more usually translated as "Horus the Elder". In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle , and Horus' eye was gouged out. Horus was occasionally shown in art as a naked boy with

10332-461: The peoples in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt , she was one of the deities commonly invoked in private prayers and votive offerings , particularly by women desiring children. During the New Kingdom ( c.  1550–1070 BC ), goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor's position in royal ideology, but she remained one of the most widely worshipped deities. After the end of

10455-411: The pharaoh, conecting the queen mother with the mother-goddesses Mut and Isis. The merging of local Theban beliefs with the Osiris cult endowed Harpocrates with dual ancestry, as seen in inscriptions at Wadi Hammamat which name him 'Horus-the-child, son of Osiris and Isis, the Elder, the first-born of Amun.' The Osirian tradition solidified Harpocrates as the archetype of child-gods, firmly integrated into

10578-530: The pharaoh. Hathor took many forms and appeared in a wide variety of roles. The Egyptologist Robyn Gillam suggests that these diverse forms emerged when the royal goddess promoted by the Old Kingdom court subsumed many local goddesses worshipped by the general populace, who were then treated as manifestations of her. Egyptian texts often speak of the manifestations of the goddess as "Seven Hathors" or, less commonly, of many more Hathors—as many as 362. For these reasons, Gillam calls her "a type of deity rather than

10701-458: The provinces, as a way of binding those regions to the royal court. She may have absorbed the traits of contemporary provincial goddesses. Many female royals, though not reigning queens, held positions in the cult during the Old Kingdom. Mentuhotep II , who became the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom despite having no relation to the Old Kingdom rulers, sought to legitimize his rule by portraying himself as Hathor's son. The first images of

10824-404: The race started. But Horus had an edge: his boat was made of wood painted to resemble stone, rather than true stone. Set's boat, being made of heavy stone, sank, but Horus' did not. Horus then won the race, and Set stepped down and officially gave Horus the throne of Egypt. Upon becoming king after Set's defeat, Horus gives offerings to his deceased father Osiris, thus reviving and sustaining him in

10947-504: The reconciliation of the two factions, as does the resolution of the myth. Horus gradually took on the nature as both the son of Osiris and Osiris himself. He was referred to as Golden Horus Osiris. In the temple of Denderah he is given the full royal titulary of both that of Horus and Osiris. He was sometimes believed to be both the father of himself as well as his own son, and some later accounts have Osiris being brought back to life by Isis. Horus-Wer, also known as Haroeris (‘Horus

11070-417: The river so that he may not be said to have been inseminated by Set. Horus (or Isis herself in some versions) then deliberately spreads his semen on some lettuce , which was Set's favourite food. After Set had eaten the lettuce, they went to the gods to try to settle the argument over the rule of Egypt. The gods first listened to Set's claim of dominance over Horus, and call his semen forth, but it answered from

11193-414: The river, invalidating his claim. Then, the gods listened to Horus' claim of having dominated Set, and call his semen forth, and it answered from inside Set. However, Set still refused to relent, and the other gods were getting tired from over eighty years of fighting and challenges. Horus and Set challenged each other to a boat race, where they each raced in a boat made of stone. Horus and Set agreed, and

11316-616: The same era, and in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts and later sources, she is frequently linked with the afterlife. Just as she crossed the boundary between Egypt and foreign lands, Hathor passed through the boundary between the living and the Duat , the realm of the dead. She helped the spirits of deceased humans enter the Duat and was closely linked with tomb sites, where that transition began. The necropolises , or clusters of tombs, on

11439-429: The shape of Hathor's face. The menat necklace, made up of many strands of beads, was shaken in ceremonies in Hathor's honor, similarly to the sistrum. Images of it were sometimes seen as personifications of Hathor herself. Hathor was sometimes represented as a human face with bovine ears, seen from the front rather than in the profile-based perspective that was typical of Egyptian art. When she appears in this form,

11562-580: The slaughter in the entire land'. 'Foremost of the two eyes' was a common epithet which was referring to the two eyes of the sky god. The two eyes represent the sun and the moon, as well as the Wadjet-eye, and played an important role in the cult of Horus-Wer. His cult center was originally Letopolis; later he was also worshipped in Kom Ombo and Qus. In Kom Ombo, he was worshipped as the son of Ra and Heqet ,the husband of his sister-wife Tasenetnofret and father of

11685-460: The son of Isis and Osiris, and he plays a key role in the Osiris myth as Osiris's heir and the rival to Set , the murderer and brother of Osiris. In another tradition, Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife. Claudius Aelianus wrote that Egyptians called the god Apollo "Horus" in their own language . However, Plutarch , elaborating further on the same tradition reported by

11808-478: The statues of the classical gods in the city were removed or destroyed in 488–89 AD. By the end of the 5th century the Christian shrine had replaced the temple as a healing centre. At the height of its popularity in the 6th and 7th centuries the shrine was one of the two principal pilgrimage centres of Christian Egypt. "Menouthis" is also the name of a song by E. S. Posthumus , inspired by the ancient city. This article about subjects relating to Ancient Egypt

11931-528: The story implies that Hathor averted the disastrous consequences of his idleness. Her act may have lifted Ra's spirits partly because it sexually aroused him, although why he laughed is not fully understood. Hathor was praised for her beautiful hair. Egyptian literature contains allusions to a myth not clearly described in any surviving texts, in which Hathor lost a lock of hair that represented her sexual allure. One text compares this loss with Horus's loss of his divine Eye and Set 's loss of his testicles during

12054-608: The struggle between the two gods, implying that the loss of Hathor's lock was as catastrophic for her as the maiming of Horus and Set was for them. Hathor was called "mistress of love", as an extension of her sexual aspect. In the series of love poems from Papyrus Chester Beatty   I, from the Twentieth Dynasty (c. 1189–1077 BC), men and women ask Hathor to bring their lovers to them: "I prayed to her [Hathor] and she heard my prayer. She destined my mistress [loved one] for me. And she came of her own free will to see me." Hathor

12177-414: The sun god sailed, and they connected it with the waters from which, according to their creation myths , the sun emerged at the beginning of time. This cosmic mother goddess was often represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him between her horns. Like Nut, Hathor was said to give birth to the sun god each dawn. Hathor's Egyptian name

12300-401: The sun god. Coffins, tombs, and the underworld itself were interpreted as the womb of this goddess, from which the deceased soul would be reborn. Nut, Hathor, and Imentet could each, in different texts, lead the deceased into a place where they would receive food and drink for eternal sustenance. Thus, Hathor, as Imentet, often appears on tombs, welcoming the deceased person as her child into

12423-541: The sun, and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt . Different forms of Horus are recorded in history, and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists . These various forms may be different manifestations of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how

12546-441: The temple's festival booth. The noise of the celebration drives away hostile powers and ensures the goddess will remain in her joyful form as she awaits the male god of the temple, her mythological consort Montu , whose son she will bear. Hathor's joyful, ecstatic side indicates her feminine, procreative power. In some creation myths she helped produce the world itself. Atum , a creator god who contained all things within himself,

12669-433: The tresses on either side of her face often curl into loops. This mask-like face was placed on the capitals of columns beginning in the late Old Kingdom. Columns of this style were used in many temples to Hathor and other goddesses. These columns have two or four faces, which may represent the duality between different aspects of the goddess or the watchfulness of Hathor of the Four Faces. The designs of Hathoric columns have

12792-414: The unified polity and its kings. Yet Horus and Set cannot be easily equated with the two halves of the country. Both deities had several cult centers in each region, and Horus is often associated with Lower Egypt and Set with Upper Egypt. Other events may have also affected the myth. Before even Upper Egypt had a single ruler, two of its major cities were Nekhen , in the far south, and Nagada , many miles to

12915-413: The union of Upper and Lower Egypt, suggest that the two deities represent some kind of division within the country. Egyptian tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that Egypt was united at the beginning of its history when an Upper Egyptian kingdom, in the south, conquered Lower Egypt in the north. The Upper Egyptian rulers called themselves "followers of Horus", and Horus became the tutelary deity of

13038-465: The united crowns of Egypt, the crown of Upper Egypt and the crown of Lower Egypt. He is a form of the rising sun, representing its earliest light. As early as the third millennium BCE, Anicent Egyptian ext like the Pyramid Texts referenced the birth, youth, and adulthood of the god Horus. However, his image as a child deity was not firmly established until the first millennium BCE, when Egyptian theologians began associating childlgods with adult gods. From

13161-521: The west bank of the Nile were personified as Imentet , the goddess of the west, who was frequently regarded as a manifestation of Hathor. The Theban necropolis , for example, was often portrayed as a stylized mountain with the cow of Hathor emerging from it. Her role as a sky goddess was also linked to the afterlife. Because the sky goddess—either Nut or Hathor—assisted Ra in his daily rebirth, she had an important part in ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs , according to which deceased humans were reborn like

13284-419: Was ḥwt-ḥrw or ḥwt-ḥr . It is typically translated "house of Horus" but can also be rendered as "my house is the sky". The falcon god Horus represented, among other things, the sun and sky. The "house" referred to may be the sky in which Horus lives, or the goddess's womb from which he, as a sun god, is born each day. Hathor was a solar deity , a feminine counterpart to sun gods such as Horus and Ra, and

13407-442: Was a common motif in Egyptian art and could represent a variety of goddesses who were identified with the Eye of Ra. When Hathor was depicted as a uraeus, it represented the ferocious and protective aspects of her character. She also appeared as a lioness, and this form had a similar meaning. In contrast, the domestic cat , which was sometimes connected with Hathor, often represented the Eye goddess's pacified form. When portrayed as

13530-476: Was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity , she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra , both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs . She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra , Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had

13653-459: Was a member of the divine entourage that accompanied Ra as he sailed through the sky in his barque . She was commonly called the "Golden One", referring to the radiance of the sun, and texts from her temple at Dendera say "her rays illuminate the whole earth." She was sometimes fused with another goddess, Nebethetepet , whose name can mean "Lady of the Offering", "Lady of Contentment", or "Lady of

13776-472: Was considered the mother of various child deities. As suggested by her name, she was often thought of as both Horus's mother and consort. As both the king's wife and his heir's mother, Hathor was the divine counterpart of human queens. Isis and Osiris were considered Horus's parents in the Osiris myth as far back as the late Old Kingdom, but the relationship between Horus and Hathor may be older still. If so, Horus only came to be linked with Isis and Osiris as

13899-437: Was identified directly with Horus, who represented kingship itself and was seen as a protector of the pharaoh, and he was seen as the son of Ra, who ruled and regulated nature as the pharaoh ruled and regulated society. The Pyramid Texts ( c.  2400–2300 BCE ) describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, where he

14022-422: Was mother to Horus's son Panebtawy. Other children of Hathor included a minor deity from the town of Hu , named Neferhotep, and several child forms of Horus. The milky sap of the sycamore tree , which the Egyptians regarded as a symbol of life, became one of her symbols. The milk was equated with water of the Nile inundation and thus fertility. In the late Ptolemaic and Roman Periods , many temples contained

14145-442: Was often depicted as a cow bearing the sun disk between her horns, especially when shown nursing the king. She could also appear as a woman with the head of a cow. Her most common form, however, was a woman wearing a headdress of the horns and sun disk, often with a red or turquoise sheath dress, or a dress combining both colors. Sometimes the horns stood atop a low modius or the vulture headdress that Egyptian queens often wore in

14268-520: Was said to be the sky, he was considered to also contain the Sun and Moon. Egyptians believed that the Sun was his right eye and the Moon his left and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across it. Later, the reason that the Moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as The Contendings of Horus and Seth . In this tale, it was said that Seth, the patron of Upper Egypt , and Horus,

14391-499: Was said to face in each of the cardinal directions to watch for threats to the sun god. A group of myths, known from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) onward, describe what happens when the Eye goddess rampages uncontrolled. In the funerary text known as the Book of the Heavenly Cow , Ra sends Hathor as the Eye of Ra to punish humans for plotting rebellion against his rule. She becomes

14514-514: Was said to have produced his children Shu and Tefnut , and thus begun the process of creation, by masturbating. The hand he used for this act, the Hand of Atum, represented the female aspect of himself and could be personified by Hathor, Nebethetepet, or another goddess, Iusaaset . In a late creation myth from the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC), the god Khonsu is put in a central role, and Hathor

14637-610: Was sometimes called "Lady of Amethyst". South of Egypt, Hathor's influence was thought to have extended over the land of Punt , which lay along the Red Sea coast and was a major source for the incense with which Hathor was linked, as well as with Nubia, northwest of Punt. The autobiography of Harkhuf , an official in the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345–2181 BC), describes his expedition to a land in or near Nubia, from which he brought back great quantities of ebony , panther skins, and incense for

14760-515: Was sometimes depicted fully as a falcon; he was sometimes given the title Kemwer , meaning "(the) great black (one)". Other variants include Hor Merti 'Horus of the two eyes' and Horkhenti Irti . Heru-pa-khered ( Harpocrates to the Ptolemaic Greeks), also known as Horus the child , is represented in the form of a youth wearing a lock of hair (a sign of youth) on the right of his head while sucking his finger. In addition, he usually wears

14883-409: Was sometimes portrayed inside the disk, which Troy interprets as meaning that the eye goddess was thought of as a womb , from which the sun god was born. Hathor's seemingly contradictory roles as mother, wife, and daughter of Ra reflected the daily cycle of the sun. At sunset the god entered the body of the sky goddess, impregnating her and fathering the deities born from her womb at sunrise: himself and

15006-601: Was told by his mother, Isis, to protect the people of Egypt from Set , the god of the desert, who had killed Horus' father, Osiris. Horus had many battles with Set, not only to avenge his father but to choose the rightful ruler of Egypt. In these battles, Horus came to be associated with Lower Egypt and became its patron. According to The Contendings of Horus and Seth , Set is depicted as trying to prove his dominance by seducing Horus and then having sexual intercourse with him. However, Horus places his hand between his thighs and catches Set's semen , then subsequently throws it in

15129-511: Was united with the other gods. New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new pharaohs. B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W The lineage of Horus, the eventual product of unions between the children of Atum , may have been a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life. By identifying Horus as

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