Goddess Renenutet

Goddess Renenutet name

Goddess Renenutet receives
papyrus plants from
Thutmose IV (Stella of
Thutmose IV)

Goddess Renenutet was an Egyptian goddess of good luck, she was taken an incarnation of Isis as the patroness of harvests. She was also worshiped as the heavenly cobra that entertained the pharaohs. A temple dedicated to Renenet was erected in the Faiyum during  the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 B.C.E.). She was also affiliated with the cults of Hathor and other goddesses relating harvests, fate, happiness, and childbearing.

Goddess Heket

Goddess Heket name

Goddess Heket

Goddess Heket was one of the particular radical of eight deities that form the Ogdoad, the basis of the Hermopolis creation myth. Heket was the female twin of Hek, a god  of  space.  She  later  formulated into a frog goddess who assisted at childbirth. Heket is first referred in the Pyramid Texts (2345 b.c.), a mathematical group of magical inscriptions, in which she accompanies the spirit of the went king to his lay in the sky. Her most important  connexion  was  with  childbirth, a distinction she shared with Bes and Tauret, who also saved mothers and children. Heket was especially addressed upon during the last levels of labor. A Middle Kingdom papyrus (2055-1650 b.c.) tells how Heket attended the wife of the high priest of Re when she was about to give birth to the future king.

Amulets and scarabs in the mold of a frog were often  worn  by  pregnant  women  in  the  hope  that Heket  would  serve  them  during  labor.  Magical inscriptions  on  ivory  wands,  modern  in  the  Middle Kingdom,  refer  to  Heket  as  the  guardian  of  the home.  A  temple  sacred  to  Heket  was  found  at Qus in Upper Egypt, and there is a source to her furore in the tomb of Petosiris (fourth century b.c.) at Tuna el Gabel in Middle Egypt. Petosiris was a full priest of the god Thoth, and he showed on his tomb that Heket led him to a shrine full by the yearly deluge of the Nile and asked him to resort her temple.  Petosiris  says  that  he  cited  his  scribe and gave him orders to figure a new temple with a wall around it to keep it safe from future floods of the Nile.

During the Eighteenth Dynasty, representations of Heket, with the consistency of a woman, are presented in the divine birth scenes of the king in Queen Hatshepsut temple at Deir el Bahari. In the Netherworld, Heket was present when the deceased was reborn. The frog contract in hieroglyphs was a secret writing  for  the  phrase wehem ankh (doubling life), a phrase that started in the Middle Kingdom used to draw the deceased.

Goddess Astarte

Goddess Astarte name

Goddess Astarte (Ishtar)

Goddess Astarte or (Ishtar) was a goddess starting in Syria and took into Egypt in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.E.). Amenhotep II (1427-1401 B.C.E.) erected a Stella observing her in Giza. She was given the rank of a daughter of the god Ra and was made a consort of Set. Astarte helped as the patroness of the pharaohs chariots in martial campaigns. She was depicted as a uncovered woman wearing the atef, or bulls horns. She had attended as a war goddess in Syria.

Goddess Sekhmet

Goddess Sekhmet name

Goddess Sekhmet

Goddess Sekhmet was a powerful war goddess of Egypt, the uprooter of pharaohs enemies, called "She Who Is Powerful". Sekhmet was a lioness  deity, the check of Ptah and the mother of Nefertum and Imhotep in Memphis A daughter of the God Ra, Sekhmet struck at evildoers and broken plagues. She also cured the righteous. Her clergymen were physicians and wizards.

Sekhmet had a modern role among the rulers of Egypt, as she was thought to bring about the innovation of the pharaohs. In the form  of a cobra she was called Mehen, and she possibly came from Nubia (modern Sudan) in the early eras. She  was  also visited the "eye of Ra".

Her statues normally depicted her as a woman with a lions lead, and at sentences she wore a sun disk on her point. In this form she was a warrior expression of the sun, getting flames to devour the oppositions of Egypt. In some eras, the gates of Sekhmet's temples were given as a signal of the onset of a military campaign. Amenemhat III (1844-1797 B.C.E.) admitted 700 statues of Sekhmet in his mortuary temple in Dashur. She  was also portrayed on the wall of the temple of Sahure (2458-2446 B.C.E.) at Abusir. This portrait acquired a widespread reputation for its weird cures.

Bubastis, The Loacation of Bastet's Cult

Bubastis (Tell-Basta-Egypt Delta)

Goddess Bastet was a local deity whose cult was centered in the city of Bubastis, now Tell Basta, which consisted the Delta near what  is  knew  as  Zagazig  today. The  town, knew in  Egyptian as (Per-Bast), carries her name, literally thinking "House of Bast". It was known in Greek as (Boubastis) and understood into Hebrew as P-beset. In the biblical Book of Ezekiel (30:17), the town looks in the Hebrew form Pibeseth

Goddess Bastet Festivals

Goddess Bastet holding a sistrum

Herodotus links that of the many solemn fetes held in Egypt, the most heavy and most popular one was that famous in Bubastis in honour of Bastet, whom he calls Bubastis and matches with the Greek goddess Artemis. Each year on the day of her festival, the town is said to have appealed some 700,000 visitors, both men and women (but not children), who came in many another crowded ships. The women engaged in music, song, and dance on their way to the place, great dedicates were made and significant amounts of wine were drunk, more  than was the case passim the year. This fits well with Egyptian sources which dictate that leonine goddesses are to be staid with the "feeds of drunkenness".

The goddess Bastet was sometimes drawn holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an breastplate in the other the protection usually resembling a collar or gorget embellished with a lioness head.

Bastet was a lioness goddess of the sun throughout most of Ancient Egyptian history, but later when she was exchanged into a cat goddess (Bastet). She also was modified to a goddess of the moon by Greeks worrying Ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilisation. In Greek mythology, Bastet also is famous as Ailuros.

Bastet and Connection to Other Deities

The lioness represented the war goddess and shielder of both lands that would link as Ancient Egypt. As divine mother, and more particularly as protector, for Lower Egypt, Bast became strongly associated with Wadjet, the patron goddess of Lower Egypt. She eventually became Wadjet-Bast, paralleling the akin pair of patron (Nekhbet)  and  lioness  shielder  (Sekhmet) for Upper Egypt. Bast fought an evil snake described Apep. As the strong lion god Maahes of warm Nubia later became part of Egyptian mythology and put the role of the son of Bast, during the time of the New Kingdom, Bast  was  held to  be  the  daughter  of Amun Ra, a new up deity in the  Egyptian  pantheon  through that late dynasty. Bast become identified as his mother in the Lower Egypt,  near  the  delta.  Similarly  the  severe  lioness  war  goddess Sekhmet,  became  discovered  as  the  mother  of  Maashes  in  the  Upper Egypt.

Wadjet-Bastet (lioness head, solar disk, and the snake cobra)

Cats in ancient Egypt were feared highly, partly due to their ability to combat vermin such as mice, shops - which unsafe key food supplies,  and  snakes,  peculiarly  cobras.  Cats  of  royalty  were,  in  some exemplifies, known to be dressed in golden jewelry and were left to eat from their owners' scales. Turner and Bateson estimate that during the twenty-second dynasty (945-715 B.C), Bast worship modified from being a lioness deity into being a star cat deity. With the union of the two Egypts, many similar deities were agreed into one or the other, the import of Bast and Sekhmet, to the sectional cultures that merged, resulted in a retention of both, necessitating a change to one or the other.

The Ancient Egyptian pantheon was producing constantly. Through the 18th dynasty Thebes got the capital of  Ancient  Egypt  and  because  of  that,  their sponsor deity became  sovereign.The priests of the temple of Amun exchanged the relative height of other  deities  in  the  Egyptian pantheon. Decreasing  the  status  of  Bast,  they  leaded off relating to  her with  the  summed  post-fix, as "Bastet"  and  their  exercise  of  the  new  name  became  very  familiar  to Egyptologists. In the temple at Per-Bast some cats were discovered to have been mummified and buried, many beside their proprietors. More  300000  mummified  cats  were  discovered  when  Bast's  temple  at  Per-Bast  was  dug.  The  main source of data about the Bast cult comes from Herodotus who seen Bubastis some 450 BC during afterwards the modifications in the cult. He compared Bastet with the Greek Goddess Artemis. He saved extensively about the cult. Turner and Bateson indicate that the status of the cat was rough equivalent to that of the cow in modern India. The death of a cat might lead a family in great mourning and those who forced out would have them embalmed or forgot in cat cemeteries - indicating to the great prevalence of the cult of Bastet. Extensive sepultures of cat continues were found not only at Bubastis, but likewise at Beni Hasan (El_Minya) and  Saqqara. In 1888, a granger naked a plot of many hundreds  of thousands of cats in Beni Hasan.

Goddess Bastet

Goddess Bastet name

Goddess Bastet

Goddess Bastet was a goddess of ancient Egypt, whose Theophany was the cat, Bastets cult substance was at Bubastis. She was the defender of pregnant women and was a pleasance loving goddess who didst  as  the  patronne of music and dance. Bastet was also believed to protect men from diseases and ogres. The goddess was seen the prosopopoeia of the white rays of the sun on the Nile. She was usually represented as a woman with a cats head, holding a Sistrum and the symbolisation of life, the Ankh.

The goddess remained popular throughout  Egypt even to Roman sentences. Her festivals at  Bubastis  were between the most well-attended solemnizations in Egypt. People set out in festooned lighters, and music attended all who made the pilgrimage to her shrine.  The festival was a time of jokes as well as another shown period of drunkenness. A gigantic parade culminated the festivity, and on that day few Egyptians were sober. Shrines of the gods were erected in Rome, Pompeii, Nemi, and Ostia.

Other Roles of Bastet:

• Bastet and Connection to Other Deities
• Goddess Bastet Festivals
• Bubastis, The Loacation of Bastet's Cult

Goddess Renpet

Goddess Renpet name

Goddess Renpet was a goddess of the Egyptian year, and the Egyptian word for year, Renpet was very frequent in the late periods of Egypt. She was described as a woman wear various symbols of works and harvests. In some eras she was consociated with the solar cult of Sopdu, named Sirius, the Dogstar, by the Greeks. Sopdu signaled  the coming flood of the Nile each year.

Goddess Pakhet

Goddess Pakhet name

Goddess Pakhet

Goddess Pakhet was a lioness-goddess worshipped in particular at the capture of a wadi in the eastern desert near Beni Hasan (close to El-Minya). Her name  is very resonant of her nature, thinking she who snatches or the tearer. In the Coffin Texts Pakhet the Great is named as a night-huntress with strong hooks.

It is easy to see Greek settlers seeing in Pakhet device characteristics of  Artemis, goddess of the chase. Speos Artemidos (cave of Artemis) grown  the  common designation of Pakhets rock-chapel near Beni Hasan, sliced out of the limestone in the 18th Dynasty under Queen Hatshepsut and King Thutmose III.

Worship of Nephthys in the New Kingdom

The Ramesside Pharaohs were  particularly  devoted  to Set's prerogatives and, in the 19th Dynasty, a temple of Nephthys named the "House of Nephthys of Ramses-Meriamun" was built or refurbished in the town of Sepermeru, center between Oxyrhynchos and Herakleopolis, on the outskirts of the Faiyum and quite near to the modern situation of Deshasheh. Here, as Papyrus Wilbour bills in its wealth of revenue enhancement records and land appraisals, the temple of Nephthys was a special cornerstone by Ramses II, set in close proximity to (or within) the precinct of the envelopment of Set. To be particular, the House of Nephthys was one of fifty individual, land-owning temples drawn for  this  portion  of  the  Middle  Egyptian  district  in  Papyrus  Wilbour. The  fields  and  other  holdings  belonging  Nephthys's temple were under the office of two Nephthys-prophets (named Penpmer) and one (named) wa'ab priest of the goddess.

Winged picture of Nephthys from the tomb of Seti I (New Kingdom)

While  certainly  affiliated  with  the  House  of  God Set,  the  Nephthys  temple  at  Sepermeru  and  its  spread  lands (different lands) clearly were under organization distinct from the Set innovation. The Nephthys temple was a special establishment in its hold right, an sovereign entity. According to Papyrus Wilbour, another "House of Goddess Nephthys  of  Ramses-Meriamun"  seems  to  have  existed to  the  northwest,  in  the  town  of  Su,  shorter  to  the  Faiyum region.

Otherwise  temple  of  Nephthys  seems  to  have  was  in  the  town  of  Punodjem.  The  Papyrus  Bologna  tapes  a complaint charged by a seer of the temple of Set in that town seeing undue taxation in his regard. After making an first appeal to "Re-Horakhte, Set, and Goddess Nephthys" for the last resolution of this issue by the royal Vizier, the prophet lamentations his workload. He notes his obvious government of the "House of God Set" and adds: "I am also responsible for the ship, and I am motor similarly for the House of Nephthys, along with a pile of other temples."

Equally  "Nephthys  of  Ramses-Meriamun,"  the  goddess  and  her  shrines  were  under  the  certain  second  of Ramses II. The innovations of the Set and Nephthys temples at Sepermeru at long last were discovered and named in the 1980, and the Nephthys temple was a individual temple complex inside the Set enclosure.

Nephthys and Saving Sister of Osiris

Goddess Nephthys plays an great role in the Osirian myth-cycle. It  is  Nephthys  who  helps  Isis  in  gathering  and  mourning  the discerp  portions  of  the  body  of  Osiris,  afterwards  his  murder  by  the jealous  Set.  Nephthys  also  serves  as  the  nursemaid  and  watchful defender  of  the  infant  Horus.  The  Pyramid Texts  bring up  to  Isis  as  the "birth-mother"  and  to  Nephthys  as  the  "nursing-mother"  of  Horus. Nephthys was attested as one of the four "Great Chiefs" ruling in the Osirian cult-center of Busiris, in the Delta and she comes out to have concerned an honorary view at the hallowed city of Abydos. No craze is certified for her there, though she certainly laced as a goddess of great importance in the annual rites taken, wherein two chose females or priestesses played the purposes of Isis and Nephthys and performed the certain  'Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys'.  There,  at  Abydos, Nephthys  linked  Isis  as  a  mourner  in  the  shrine  known  as  the Osireion. These "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys" were ritual elements  of  many  such  Osirian  rites  in  senior  ancient  Egyptian cult-centers.

Nephthys, as a mortuary goddess (along with Isis, Neith, and Serket), was one of the protectresses of the Canopic jars of the Hapi. God Hapi, one of  the  Sons  of  Horus,  guarded  the  embalmed  lungs.  Thus  we  find Nephthys invested with the name, "Nephthys of the Bed of Life," in  direct  source  to  her  regenerative  precedencies  on  the  embalming table. In the city of Memphis, Nephthys was punctually respected with the title "Queen  of  the  Embalmer's  Shop,"  and  there  related  with  the jackal-headed God Anubis as patron.

Nephthys  was  likewise  taken  a  festive  deity  whose  rites  could mandatory  the  liberal  consumption  of  beer.  In  distinct  reliefs  at  Edfu, Dendera,  and  Behbeit,  Nephthys  is  showed  receiving  lavish beer-offerings from the Pharaoh, which she would "return", using her power  as  a  beer-goddess  "that the pharaoh may  have  joy  with  no hangover." Elsewhere at Edfu, for instance, Nephthys is a goddess who applies the Pharaoh power to see "that which is covered by moonlight." This fits well with more frequent textual roots that view Nephthys to be a goddess whose unique area was darkness, or the perilous boundaries of the desert. Nephthys could also seem as one of the goddesses who assists at childbearing. One ancient Egyptian myth continued in the Papyrus Westcar recounts the tale of Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, and Heqet as traveling social dancers in disguise, assisting the wife of a priest of Amun-Ra as she sets to bring forth sons who are certain for fame and fortune. Nephthys's  preventive  sciences  and  status  as  direct  twin  of  Isis,  steeped,  as  her  sister  in  "words  of  power,"  are evidenced by the abundance of faience amulets carved in her likeness, and by her mien in a variety of magical papyri that sought to summon her famously altruistic characters to the aid of mortals.

Goddess Nephthys

Goddess Nephthys name

Goddess Nephthys

Goddess Nephthys was the ancient Egyptian goddess, called the accord and female counterpart to Set, earlier addressed as Nebt-het, she was the  sister of Isis, Osiris, and  Set and  tricked Osiris into siring her son, Anubis. When Osiris was executed, Nephthys  aided  Isis in getting  his body  and resurrecting him. She was  part of the worshipped (mournings of Isis and Nephthys).

Nephthys was a patronne of the dead and was associated as well with the cult of God Min. She was also a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. The  goddess  took  the form of a kite, a bird displayed in funerary processions, and she was the patroness of God Hapi, one of the Canopic Jar guardians. Her cult at Kom-Mer in Upper Egypt continued passim all historical periods. She was called the Lady  of  the  Mansions  or  the  Lady  of  the  Books.  She was also identified with the desert realms and was expert in magic. Nephthys is showed as a woman hard the hieroglyph for Castle on her head.

Other Roles of Nephthys:

• Nephthys and Saving Sister of Osiris
• Worship of Nephthys in the New Kingdom

Goddess Nehmetawy

Goddess Nehmetawy name

Goddess Nehmetawy was an ancient Egyptian goddess. She is not very widely famous. She was the wife of snake god Nehebu-kau, or in other places of worship, like in Hermopolis, the wife of Thoth. Her depicting are anthropomorph, with a sistrum-shaped headdress, much with a child in her lap.

Goddess Menhit

Goddess Menhit name

Goddess Menhit

A foreign war goddess, Menhit is the wife of God Anhur, both of whom may have grown in Nubia. Her name keys her as a goddess of force; it means she who massacres. Associated with Sekhmet, Menhit was seen as a feline goddess and often represented as a lioness. The Egyptian army believed that Menhit rode before of them to outsmart Egypts enemies with fiery arrows. She was favorite in Upper Egypt as the wife of God Khnum and the mother of God Heka.

Goddess Anat

Goddess Anat name

Goddess Anat

Goddess Anat or Anath was a goddess of the Canaanites, patronne of both love and war, Anat, always described as a pleasant young woman and named the Virgin, was the sister of the Semitic god Baal. Anat was respected as a goddess of  war  and  military campaigns  and  was  taken  by King Ramses II (1290-1224 B.C.E.) as one of his sponsors. In Egypt, Anat was depicted nude, standing on a lion and taking flowers. In the Ptolemaic Period (304-30 B.C.E.) Anat  was  mixed  with  Astarte, accepting  the  name "Astargatis". In other eras she was held Reshef and Baal as checks in rituals.

Goddess Ammit

Goddess Ammit name

Goddess Ammit

Goddess Ammit was a female demon  who  does a portion in the Egyptian Day of Judgment. She was feared as devourer of the dead, and she had the head of a crocodile, the torso of a predatory cat and the bottom of  a  hippopotamus. This  monster  waylaid near the scales of judge waiting for the verdict  to  be  given,  whereupon  she downed the sinner.

Goddess Amunet

Goddess Amunet name

Goddess Amunet was the wife of God Amun in the creation myth of the Ogdoad. Goddess Amunet and her husband described hiddenness.  Mythology  tells  us  that  Amunet  and Amun  resided  in  the  darkness  and  chaos  of  the  primordial water. Amunet is a symbol of protection and one of the creation goddesses. Her rites were corresponding the pharaohs jubilee fete, and during the later Greek mastery of Egypt (332-32 b.c.), she is shown nurturing  the  king  during  his  coronation  ceremonial. Amunet is sometimes shown as a goddess wearing a crown of Lower Egypt. Her place of importance was for the most part  taken over by Mut, Amuns wife during the New Kingdom (1550-1069 b.c.). However, there is a statue of Amunet in Karnak Temple.

Goddess Mut

Goddess Mut name

Goddess Mut

Goddess Mut was the goddess whose name agencies mother in  ancient Egyptian. Like Hathor and Isis, Mut was  the  symbolical  mother  of  the  pharaoh.  Mut  is connected  with  both  the  piranha  and  the  lioness. As a vulture goddess she is shown with the marauder headdress  with  the  double  crown  of  Upper  and Lower  Egypt.  Her  brightly  colored  red  or  blue clothe  is  a  linen  sheath  dress,  sometimes  with  a feather shape, and  she  carries  a  papyrus scepter. In  her  role  as  a  lioness,  Mut  is  linked  with Sekhmet,  who  acted  as  the  unforgiving  eye of Ra. The lioness-headed goddess Mut exchanged Amunet, the  first  wife  of  Amun,  and  gone  his  chief  wife when he raised to prominence in Thebes. She is the mother of God Khonsu, and together God Amun, Goddess Mut, and God Khonsu  make up  the  Theban  triad.  Mut appears conspicuously  in  all  the  leading  temples  next  to  her husband, and her devoted precinct was married to the Amun sanctuary by a precious route.

Goddess Nebethetepet

Goddess Nebethetepet name

Goddess Nebethetepet is an ancient Egyptian goddess. Her name means "Lady of the Offerings" or "Fulfilled Lady". She was worshipped in Heliopolis as a female opposite number of Atum, similarly to Iusaaset; was also associated with Hathor. She personified Atum's hand, the female principle of creation; she had no other significance.