Miut
08-31-2004, 01:08 AM
"The Book of the Divine Cow is a book of the underworld in which the goddess Hathor turns into the terrifying goddess Sekhmet and punishes those who plotted against her father Ra." This is the source for the story of Sekhmet slaughtering humanity and only being stopped by Ra tricking her into drinking 7,000 jars of red dyed beer.
"The two goddesses, raging Sekhmet and content Hathor, act as two sides of the same nature, extreme expressions of a single passion, the rage that can be coaxed back to placidity, or the love that turns to hate. Fury is expressed in pharonic art as a lion, embodying the power to destroy enemies, and a range of protective goddesses were represented in this form. Modern onlookers are often baffled by the use of the same imagery for different deities, image and name combine in every instance to form a differently nuanced expression of one central theme, the protective power of a dangerous force."
This is from the Stephen Quirke book on Ancient Egyptian Religion - he's a member of the Antiquities Dept of the British Museum.
Hathor is described by him as Mistress of the Western desert, which does tie her again to Sekhmet, and "..the goddess who answered Egyptian aspirations in the the entire area we subdivide into love, marriage and motherhood. She is woman in the role of sexual partner, a cow in her role as tender mother." The king also placed himself under her tutelage and her name indicates an original royal role as the 'house of Horus' either as wife or mother of the god. And that again comes back to Sekhmet as destroyer/protector of the king. She's also known as goddess of the southern sycamore at Memphis.
"Afterwards, Hathor was sent to inflict her punishment. For three nights the goddess Hathor-Sekhmet waded about in the blood of men, the slaughter beginning at Hensu (Herakleopolis Magna).. But the sun god took pity on those humans who were left. He saved them by causing Hathor to become drunk on blood red beer."
Sekhmet is also associated with healers who were designated "pure-priest of Sekhmet" especially in incantations against the plague. Amulets of Sekhmet were thought to protect the wearer from a premature death.
http://www.sff.net/people/Lisanne/Viking/images/miut.gif
"The two goddesses, raging Sekhmet and content Hathor, act as two sides of the same nature, extreme expressions of a single passion, the rage that can be coaxed back to placidity, or the love that turns to hate. Fury is expressed in pharonic art as a lion, embodying the power to destroy enemies, and a range of protective goddesses were represented in this form. Modern onlookers are often baffled by the use of the same imagery for different deities, image and name combine in every instance to form a differently nuanced expression of one central theme, the protective power of a dangerous force."
This is from the Stephen Quirke book on Ancient Egyptian Religion - he's a member of the Antiquities Dept of the British Museum.
Hathor is described by him as Mistress of the Western desert, which does tie her again to Sekhmet, and "..the goddess who answered Egyptian aspirations in the the entire area we subdivide into love, marriage and motherhood. She is woman in the role of sexual partner, a cow in her role as tender mother." The king also placed himself under her tutelage and her name indicates an original royal role as the 'house of Horus' either as wife or mother of the god. And that again comes back to Sekhmet as destroyer/protector of the king. She's also known as goddess of the southern sycamore at Memphis.
"Afterwards, Hathor was sent to inflict her punishment. For three nights the goddess Hathor-Sekhmet waded about in the blood of men, the slaughter beginning at Hensu (Herakleopolis Magna).. But the sun god took pity on those humans who were left. He saved them by causing Hathor to become drunk on blood red beer."
Sekhmet is also associated with healers who were designated "pure-priest of Sekhmet" especially in incantations against the plague. Amulets of Sekhmet were thought to protect the wearer from a premature death.
http://www.sff.net/people/Lisanne/Viking/images/miut.gif