In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet (also spelled Sachmet, Sakhet, Sekmet, Sakhmet and Sekhet; and given the Greek name, Sacmis), was originally the warrior goddess of Upper Egypt. Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Egypt from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity Upper Egypt (صعيد مصر Sa'id Misr) is a narrow strip of land that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan to the area between She is depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. The lion ( Panthera leo) is a member of the family Felidae and one of four Big cats in the Genus Panthera. It was said that her breath created the desert. She was seen as the protector of the pharaohs. Pharaoh is the title given in modern parlance to the ancient Egyptian kings of all periods
Her cult was so dominant in the culture that when the first pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty, Amenemhat I, moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy, the centre for her cult was moved as well. Pharaoh is the title given in modern parlance to the ancient Egyptian kings of all periods Religion, the royal lineage, and the authority to govern were intrinsically interwoven in Ancient Egypt during its ten thousand years of existence.
Sekhmet is a solar deity, often considered an aspect of the Goddesses Hathor and Bast. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Pronounced Hah-Thor ( Egyptian for house of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way She bears the solar disk, and the Uraeus which associates her with Wadjet and royalty. The Uraeus (plural Uraei or Uraeuses, from the Greek grc οὐραῖος from Egyptian egy jʿr In Egyptian mythology, Wadjet, which means the Green One ( Egyptian egy w3ḏyt; also spelt Wadjit or Wedjet With these associations she can be construed as being a divine arbiter of Ma'at (Justice, or Order), The Eye of Horus and connecting her with Tefnut as well. Maat or Mayet, thought to have been pronounced as *Muʔʕat (Muh-aht was the Ancient Egyptian concept of Truth, balance order— Law The Eye of Horus is the second demo of Polish Technical death metal band Decapitated.
As Lower Egypt had been conquered by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was seen as the more powerful of the two warrior goddesses, the other, Bast, being the similar warrior goddess of Lower Egypt. In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelled Ubasti, and later Bastet) is an ancient Solar and War Goddess, worshipped at Consequently, it was Sekhmet who was seen as the Avenger of Wrongs, and the Scarlet Lady, a reference to blood, as the one with bloodlust. She also was seen as a special goddess for women, ruling over menstruation. See also "Mensuration" a term sometimes used to describe Measurement, particularly in the context of Forestry.
Sekhmet became identified in some later cults as a daughter of the new sun god, Ra, when his cult merged with and supplanted the worship of Horus (the son of Hathor, who was one of the oldest of Egyptian deities and gave birth daily to the sun). Ra (pronounced Rah and sometimes as Rê, is an Ancient Egyptian sun god. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Pronounced Hah-Thor ( Egyptian for house of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way At that time many roles of deities were changed in the Egyptian myths. Some were changed further when the Greeks established a royal line of rulers that lasted for three hundred years and some of their historians tried to create parallels between deities in the two pantheons.
Her name suits her function and means, the (one who is) powerful. She also was given titles such as the (One) Before Whom Evil Trembles, the Mistress of Dread, and the Lady of Slaughter.
Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying the pharaoh's enemies with arrows of fire. An arrow is a pointed Projectile that is shot with a bow. It predates recorded history and is common to most Cultures. Fire is the heat and light energy released during a Chemical reaction, in particular a combustion reaction. An early Egyptian sun deity also, her body was said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title Lady of Flame. The Sun (Sol is the Star at the center of the Solar System. It was said that death and destruction were balm for her warrior's heart and that the hot desert winds were believed to be her breath. Wind is the flow of Air or other Gases that compose an Atmosphere (including but not limited to the Earth's) [1]
In order to placate Sekhmet's wrath, her priestesses performed a ritual before a different statue of the goddess on each day of the year. This practice resulted in many images of the goddess being preserved. It is estimated that more than seven hundred statues of Sekhmet once stood in one funerary temple alone, that of Amenhotep III, on the west bank of the Nile. Amenhotep III (sometimes read as Amenophis III meaning Amun is Satisfied was the ninth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. The Nile (النيل, Ancient Egyptian iteru or Ḥ'pī, Coptic piaro or phiaro) is a major north-flowing River It was said that her statues were protected from theft or vandalism by coating them with anthrax. Anthrax is an acute Disease in humans and animals caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis which is highly lethal in some forms
Sekhmet also was seen as a bringer of disease as well as the provider of cures to such ills. The name "Sekhmet" literally became synonymous with physicians and surgeons during the Middle Kingdom. A physician, medical practitioner or medical doctor who practices Medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human Health In Medicine, a surgeon is a person who performs Surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive Medical treatment that involves the cutting of a The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of Ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty In antiquity, many members of Sekhmet's priesthood often were considered to be on the same level as physicians.
She was envisioned as a fierce lioness, and in art, was depicted as such, or as a woman with the head of a lioness, who was dressed in red, the colour of blood. The lion ( Panthera leo) is a member of the family Felidae and one of four Big cats in the Genus Panthera. Art refers to a diverse range of Human activities creations and expressions that are appealing to the Senses or Emotions of a human individual Sometimes the dress she wears exhibits a rosetta pattern over each nipple, an ancient leonine motif, which can be traced to observation of the shoulder-knot hairs on lions. In its most general form a nipple is a Structure from which a fluid emanates Tame lions were kept in temples dedicated to Sekhmet at Leontopolis. This article is about the large ancient city of Lower Egypt for other uses of Leontopolis see Leontopolis (disambiguation Leontopolis (
To pacify Sekhmet, festivals were celebrated at the end of battle, so that the destruction would come to an end. During an annual festival held at the beginning of the year, a festival of intoxication, the Egyptians danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess and drank great quantities of beer ritually to imitate the extreme drunkenness that stopped the wrath of the goddess—when she almost destroyed humankind. This may relate to averting excessive flooding during the inundation at the beginning of each year as well, when the Nile ran blood-red with the silt from upstream and Sekhmet had to swallow the overflow to save humankind.
In 2006, Betsy Bryan, an archaeologist with Johns Hopkins University excavating at the temple of Mut presented her findings about the festival that included illustrations of the priestesses being served to excess and its adverse effects being ministered to by temple attendants. Mut, which means mother, was an Ancient Egyptian Mother goddess with multiple aspects that changed over the thousands of years of the culture [2] Participation in the festival was great, including the priestesses and the population. Historical records of tens of thousands attending the festival exist. These findings were made in the temple of Mut because when Thebes rose to greater prominence, Mut absorbed the warrior goddesses as some of her aspects. First, Mut became Mut-Wadjet-Bast, then Mut-Sekhmet-Bast (Wadjet having merged into Bast), then Mut also assimilated Menhit, another lioness goddess, and her adopted son's wife, becoming Mut-Sekhmet-Bast-Menhit, and finally becoming Mut-Nekhbet. In Egyptian mythology, Wadjet, which means the Green One ( Egyptian egy w3ḏyt; also spelt Wadjit or Wedjet In Egyptian mythology, Menhit (also spelt Menchit) was originally a foreign War goddess In Egyptian mythology, Nekhbet (also spelt Nechbet, and Nekhebit) was an early Predynastic, local Goddess who was the patron of the These temple excavations at Luxor discovered a "porch of drunkenness" built onto the temple by the pharaoh Hatshepsut, during the height of her twenty year reign. Hatshepsut (or Hatchepsut, hætˈʃɛpsʊt meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies, was the fifth Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of
In a later myth developed around an annual drunken Sekhmet festival, Ra, by then the sun god of Upper Egypt, created her from a fiery eye gained from his mother (Hathor), to destroy mortals who conspired against him (Lower Egypt). Ra (pronounced Rah and sometimes as Rê, is an Ancient Egyptian sun god. "Sun god" redirects here For the Ramsey Lewis album see Sun Goddess (album. In the myth, Sekhmet's blood-lust was not quelled at the end of battle and led to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra tricked her by turning the Nile red like blood (the Nile turns red every year when filled with silt during inundation) so that Sekhmet would drink it. However, the red liquid was not blood, but beer mixed with pomegranate juice so that it resembled blood, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter and became an aspect of the gentle Hathor. Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed Alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Pronounced Hah-Thor ( Egyptian for house of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way
After Sekhmet's worship moved to Memphis, as Horus and Ra had been identified as one another under the name Ra-Herakhty—when the two religious systems were merged and Ra became seen as a form of Atum, known as Atum-Ra—so Sekhmet, as a form of Hathor, was seen as Atum's mother as Hathor had been the mother of the sun, giving birth anew to it every day. Atum (alternatively spelled Tem, Temu, Tum, and Atem) is an important Deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred She then was seen as the mother of Nefertum, the youthful form of Atum who emerged in later myths, and so was said to have Ptah, Nefertum's father, as a husband when most of the goddesses acquired counterparts as paired deities. In Egyptian mythology, Nefertem (also Nefertum, Nefer-Tem, Nefer-Temu) was originally just the young Atum (his name means beautiful In Egyptian mythology, Ptah (also spelt Peteh) was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead Cosmogony, which was more literally
Although Sekhmet again became identified as an aspect of Hathor, over time both evolved back into separate deities because the characters of the two goddesses were so vastly different. Later, as noted above, the creation goddess Mut, the great mother, gradually became absorbed into the identities of the patron goddesses, merging with Sekhmet, and also sometimes with Bast. Mut, which means mother, was an Ancient Egyptian Mother goddess with multiple aspects that changed over the thousands of years of the culture In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelled Ubasti, and later Bastet) is an ancient Solar and War Goddess, worshipped at
Sekhmet was considered to be the mother of Maahes.
- ^ Sources from Sekhmet article by Caroline Seawright at Tour Egypt, retrieved December 8, 2007.
- ^ "Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites", archaeologists find evidence for ancient version of ‘Girls Gone Wild’. From MSNBC, Oct 30, 2006
See also
- List of women warriors rock folklore, literature, and popular culture
External links
Sekhmet: Lioness Goddess & 'Eye of Ra'
- Ancient Egypt: the Mythology - Sekhmet
- Sekhmet: The Eye of Ra
- Contemplation of Sekhmet - The Lady of Mysteries of Ancient Egypt
- Temple of Sekhmet, in Cactus Springs, Nevada
- "Ancient war goddess statues unearthed in Egypt", archaeologists unearth six statues of the lion-headed war goddess Sekhmet in temple of pharaoh Amenhotep III. MSNBC is a 24-hour cable television news channel based in the United States and available in Canada. Cactus Springs is a small community in Clark County, Nevada located on US Highway 95, about sixty miles northwest of Las Vegas in the 2006-03-06
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