| Egyptian goddesses - Page one | |||||||||||||||||
| Bastet - |
The goddess Bastet was usually represented as a woman with the head of a domesticated cat. She was also portrayed though with the head of a lioness and with green skin. In her right hand, Bastet holds a sistrum (a kind of rattle sacred to her). As portrayed as a cat, she was connected with the moon (her son Khensu was the god of the moon). When shown as a lioness, she is associated with sunlight. Bastet was the goddess of fire, cats, of the home and pregnant women. According to one myth, she was the personification of the soul of Isis. She was also called the "Lady of the East". As such, her counterpart as "Lady of the West" was Sekhmet.Bastet was said to be the wife and daughter of the sun-god Re. Her center of worship was in Bubastis (Per-Bast, Pa-Bast, Pibeseth, Tell-Basta), in the eastern Delta. Her chief festivals were celebrated in April and May. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, provides the following description of one of the festivals: "When the Egyptians travel to Bubastis, they do so in this manner: men and women sail together, and in each boat there are many persons of both sexes. Some of the women shake their rattles and some of the men blow their pipes during the whole journey, while others sing and clap their hands. If they pass a town on the way, some of the women land and shout and jeer at the local women, while others dance and create a disturbance. They do this at every town on the Nile. When they arrive at Bubastis, they begin the festival with great sacrifices, and on this occasion, more wine is consumed than during the whole of the rest of the year." | ||||||||||||||||
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Anqet was the goddess of the island of Sahal, near the First Cataract of the Nile. She was shown as a woman who wears a crown of feathers. Her sister was Satet, the wife of Khnemu. Together, the three deities formed the Triad of Elephantine, the principal deities of that city. Anqet was originally a water goddess from Sudan. Her name meant, to embrace" which was interpreted to mean that her embrace during the annual Nile floods fertilized the fields. Later, she became a goddess of lust, whose attributes and cult were obscene. Her worship was common throughout northern Nubia and the center of her worship was the island of Sahal, near Aswan. There she was called the "Lady of Sahal" (Nebt Satet). Anqet's temple at Sahal was called "Amen-heri-ab". | Anqet - | ||||||||||||||||
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| Buto - |
Buto was a cobra-goddess whose original home and cult center was in the Delta of the Nile at Per-Uatchit. In time she became a prominent protectress of all of Lower Egypt. As such she was routinely connected to the goddess of Upper Egypt, Nekhebet. Together, they appeared in many pieces of art as symbols of the Two Lands, a united Egypt. Buto did not just protect Egypt, she also was an agressive defender of the king. She was portrayed as the uraeus cobra first worn on the brow of Re, and later the pharaohs'. Her hood is spread in a threatening position and she is ready to spit poison on all of the pharaoh's enemies or burn them with her fiery glare. It is thought perhaps that her powers could be used against the pharaoh as well. Her bite may have been the deadly device used by Anubis at the appointed time of the pharaoh's death. Buto was a personification of the sun's burning heat and she was called the "Lady of Heaven" and the queen of all of the gods. She was closely associated with Horus the Elder, who was the protector god of Lower Egypt. Also she was associated with Harpokrates (Horus the Younger); she protected him from Seth in the marshes of the Delta while Isis was searching for the body of Osiris. Buto was depicted in art as a woman wearing the uraeus or the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. She was shown carrying a papyrus stem around which was coiled a cobra. Sometimes she was shown as just a cobra coiled in a basket and wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. | ||||||||||||||||
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