Divine Feminine

Posts Tagged ‘Egypt’

Homage to You, the Cow of Gold,
The Beautiful, with numerous colours,
The Only One in the sky,

Hathor is among the most ancient of the Egyptian deities. She is found in the pre-dynastic times, and in many guises and aspects.

Hathor is a sky-goddess, a sun-goddess, a moon-goddess, a goddess of the east, a goddess of the west, a goddess of music, goddess of intoxication, of moisture, of flooding, and of fertility. She is a fertility goddess, an agricultural goddess, and goddess of the underworld.

So in the beginning every goddess was Hathor

The ancient women of Egypt, from highest to lowest, loved Hathor as the patron of all women. As the goddess of music and dancing her symbol was the sistrum and, as a fertility goddess and goddess of moisture, she was associated with the regular life-giving flooding of the Nile.

The story of the ‘Destruction of Men’, engraved into a shrine of Tutankhamen’s tomb, tells us how Hathor becomes the Eye of Ra, the lion goddess Sekhmet.

It is said that as the sun god Ra grew older, he became fearful of his enemies and asked Hathor to help him. She took on the job thoroughly indeed. As Sekhmet, she began to systematically slaughter the people, laughing and and enjoying the killing.

Ra then worried that she would wipe out the entire human race, so he had red dye mixed in beer and spread about the land. Hathor, thinking it was blood, drank it and became so intoxicated that she forgot her assignment and humanity was saved. Pacified by the beer, she resumed her persona as the beautiful Hathor and returned to Ra. No wonder Hathor is also the goddess of intoxication

As time went on, her role changed. She welcomed the arrival of the dead, dispensing water to them from the branches of a sycamore and offering them food. She was often represented as a cow suckling the dead to give them sustenance during their mummification, their journey to the judgement hall, and the ultimate weighing of their soul.
Her depiction

Her Depiction

Hathor is usually depicted as a beautiful woman with cow horns, or a cow wearing the sun disk, or a lion-headed woman in her destructive aspect. It was only later that she was shown as a woman with the head of a cow. A frequent motif seen in the Book of the Dead and tomb reliefs is Hathor emerging from the papyrus swamps in Her bovine form. Her depiction as a cow is seen on a 1st Dynasty stone vase and these two essential elements of hers appear throughout Egyptian history.

The divine cows of Egyptian mythology included the four sacred cows that accompanied Hathor representing the four regions of the sky.

Her Names

Some of her titles are still remembered, she was invoked as Lady to the Limit, Mistress of Heaven, Divine Cow, Lady of Sycamore and Lady of Malachite. She was the Vengeful Eye of Ra, the Lady of Drunkenness, and, when she presided over the dead, as Lady of the West. Many are her names, as befits an ancient goddess.

The Greeks recognised Hathor as Aphrodite and by that name she is universally known, but her essence can be found in Isis. After 2000 years of worship, the Divine Cow, sistrum and all, was absorbed into Isis.