Hathor. Hathor (/ˈhæθɔr/ or /ˈhæθər/;[2] Egyptian: ḥwt-ḥr and from Greek: Άθωρ, "mansion of Horus")[1] is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of joy, feminine love, and motherhood.[3] She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. Hathor was worshiped by Royalty and common people alike in whose tombs she is depicted as "Mistress of the West" welcoming the dead into the next life.[4] In other roles she was a goddess of music, dance, foreign lands and fertility who helped women in childbirth,[4] as well as the patron goddess of miners.[5] The cult of Hathor predates the historic period, and the roots of devotion to her are therefore difficult to trace, though it may be a development of predynastic cults which venerated fertility, and nature in general, represented by cows.[6] Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with horns in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus.
Early depictions[edit] Temples[edit] Hesat[edit] Notes[edit] Venus (mythology) Gods of Earth and Nature. Bastet. Photograph of an alabaster cosmetic jar topped with a lioness, representing Bast, an 18th dynasty burial artifact from the tomb of Tutankhamun circa 1323 BC - Cairo Museum Bastet was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, worshipped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BC). As Bast, she was the goddess of warfare in Lower Egypt, the Nile River delta region, before the unification of the cultures of ancient Egypt. Her name is also spelled Baast, Ubaste, and Baset.[1] The two uniting cultures had deities that shared similar roles and usually the same imagery. Name[edit] Bastet, the form of the name which is most commonly adopted by Egyptologists today because of its use in later dynasties, is a modern convention offering one possible reconstruction.
During later dynasties, Bast was assigned a lesser role in the pantheon bearing the name Bastet, but retained. The town of Bast's cult (see below) was known in Greek as Boubastis (Βούβαστις). She is also known as The Eye of Ra. Bubastis[edit] Aten. Alternative use: the Aten asteroids, named after 2062 Aten; A10 Networks, a manufacturer of computer networking equipment Aten Aten (also Aton, Egyptian jtn) is the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. The deified Aten is the focus of the monolatristic, henotheistic, or monotheistic religion of Atenism established by Amenhotep IV, who later took the name Akhenaten in worship and recognition of Aten.
In his poem "Great Hymn to the Aten", Akhenaten praises Aten as the creator, and giver of life. The worship of Aten was eradicated by Horemheb. Overview[edit] The full title of Akhenaten's god was "Ra-Horakhty who rejoices in the horizon, in his Name as the Light which is in the sun disc. " Royal Titulary[edit] Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family adoring the Aten, second from the left is Meritaten who was the daughter of Akhenaten. Small Temple of the Aten at Akhetaten Variant translations[edit] Variant vocalizations[edit] Names derived from Aten[edit] Uraeus. The Uraeus is a symbol for the goddess Wadjet, who was one of the earliest Egyptian deities and who often was depicted as a cobra.
The center of her cult was in Per-Wadjet, later called Buto by the Greeks.[2] She became the patroness of the Nile Delta and the protector of all of Lower Egypt. The pharaohs wore the Uraeus as a head ornament: either with the body of Wadjet atop the head, or as a crown encircling the head; this indicated Wadjet's protection and reinforced the pharaoh's claim over the land. In whatever manner that the Uraeus was displayed upon the pharaoh's head, it was, in effect, part of the pharaoh's crown. The pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the Uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to the ruler. There is evidence for this tradition even in the Old Kingdom during the third millennium BCE. Several goddesses associated with or being considered aspects of Wadjet are depicted wearing the Uraeus also.
Golden Uraeus of Senusret II[edit] Uraeus as a hieroglyph[edit] Maat. The earliest surviving records indicating Maat is the norm for nature and society, in this world and the next, were recorded during the Old Kingdom, the earliest substantial surviving examples being found in the Pyramid Texts of Unas (ca. 2375 BCE and 2345 BCE).[2] Later, as a goddess in other traditions of the Egyptian pantheon, where most goddesses were paired with a male aspect, her masculine counterpart was Thoth and their attributes are the same. After the rise of Ra they were depicted together in the Solar Barque. After her role in creation and continuously preventing the universe from returning to chaos, her primary role in Egyptian mythology dealt with the weighing of souls that took place in the underworld, Duat.[3] Her feather was the measure that determined whether the souls (considered to reside in the heart) of the departed would reach the paradise of afterlife successfully.
Maat as a principle[edit] Winged Maat Maat and the law[edit] Maat wearing feather of truth See also[edit] Tefnut. Etymology[edit] Literally translating as "That Water",[2] the name Tefnut has been linked to the verb 'tfn' meaning 'to spit'[3] and versions of the creation myth say that Ra (or Atum) spat her out and her name was written as a mouth spitting in late texts.[4] Mythological origins[edit] There are a number of variants to the myth of the creation of Tefnut and her twin brother Shu.
In all versions, Tefnut is the product of parthenogenesis, and all involve some variety of bodily fluid. In the Heliopolitan creation myth, the solar god Atum masturbates to produce Tefnut and Shu.[6] Atum was creative in that he proceeded to masturbate himself in Heliopolis. In some versions of this myth, Atum also swallows his semen, and spits it out to form the twins, or else the spitting of his saliva forms the act of procreation. The Coffin Texts contain references to Shu being sneezed out by Atum from his nose, and Tefnut being spat out like saliva. Iconography[edit] Cult centres[edit] Mythology[edit]