| Anuket | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The goddess Anuket, depicted as a woman with a tall, plumed headdress | |||||
| Name in hieroglyphs |
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| Major cult center | Elephantine, Seheil | ||||
| Symbol | Bow, arrows, gazelle, ostrich feather | ||||
| Parents | Khnum and Satet | ||||
| Equivalents | |||||
| Greek | Hestia | ||||
| Roman | Vesta | ||||
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Anuket was the ancient Egyptian goddess of the cataracts of the Nile and Lower Nubia in general, worshipped especially at Elephantine near the First Cataract. [1]
In ancient Egyptian, she was known as Anuket, Anaka, [2] or Anqet. [3] Her name meant the "Clasper" or "Embracer". [2] In Greek, this became Anoukis (Ανουκις), [2] sometimes also spelled Anukis. [4] In the interpretatio graeca , she was considered equivalent to Hestia or Vesta. [2]
She was originally the daughter of Ra, but was always related to Satet in some way. For example, both goddesses were called the "Eye of Ra", along with Bastet, Hathor, and Sekhmet. [3] Also, they were both related in some way to the Uraeus. [3]
Anuket was the goddess of the Nile flood and a protective goddess of the southern border of Egypt. Her posing with her arms outstretched may have been a visual reference to the shape of the Nile, with its two tributaries, and influenced her being called "the Embracer". In the New Kingdom, her aspects as a southern goddess were emphasized to the point where one of her epithets was "the Nubian". [5]
She was associated with swift moving water, and this was the reason for her association with papyruses. [5]
Anuket was part of a triad with the god Khnum, and the goddess Satis. She may have been the sister of the goddess Satis [6] or she may have been a junior consort to Khnum instead. [6] [2]
A temple dedicated to Anuket was erected on the Island of Seheil. Inscriptions show that a shrine or altar was dedicated to her at this site by the 13th Dynasty pharaoh Sobekhotep III. Much later, during the 18th Dynasty, Amenhotep II dedicated a chapel to the goddess. [7]
During the New Kingdom, Anuket's cult at Elephantine included a river procession of the goddess during the first month of Shemu. Inscriptions mention the processional festival of Khnum and Anuket during this period. [8]
Ceremonially, when the Nile started its annual flood, the Festival of Anuket began. People threw coins, gold, jewelry, and precious gifts into the river, in thanks to the goddess for the life-giving water and returning benefits derived from the wealth provided by her fertility. The taboo held in several parts of Egypt, against eating certain fish which were considered sacred, was lifted during this time, suggesting that a fish species of the Nile was a totem for Anuket and that they were consumed as part of the ritual of her major religious festival.[ citation needed ] [9] She was seen as bringing forth the flood. [10]
Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom, as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of medicine.
Bastet, also known as Ubasti, or Bubastis, is a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion possibly of Nubian origin, worshipped as early as the Second Dynasty. In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros.
Neith was an ancient Egyptian deity, possibly of Libyan origin. She was connected with warfare, as indicated by her emblem of two crossed bows, and with motherhood, as shown by texts that call her the mother of particular deities, such as the sun god Ra and the crocodile god Sobek. As a mother goddess, she was sometimes said to be the creator of the world. She also had a presence in funerary religion, and this aspect of her character grew over time: she became one of the four goddesses who protected the coffin and internal organs of the deceased.
Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Khnum, also romanised Khnemu, was one of the earliest-known Egyptian deities in Upper Egypt, originally associated with the Nile cataract. He held the responsibility of regulating the annual inundation of the river, emanating from the caverns of Hapy, the deity embodying the flood. Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surroundings, he eventually became known as the creator of human bodies and the life force kꜣ ("ka"). Using a potter's wheel and clay, he fashioned these entities and placed them within their mothers' wombs. Often, his creative endeavors were overseen by another god. He was later described as having moulded the other deities, and was revered as the creator of the animal kingdom.
Menhit was originally a Nubian lion goddess of war in the Kingdom of Kush, who was regarded as a tutelary and sun goddess. Her name means either "she who sacrifices" or "she who massacres."
Satet,Satit or Satjet, Satjit in Ancient Egyptian, Greek: Satis, also known by numerous related names, was an Upper Egyptian goddess who, along with Khnum and Anuket, formed part of the Elephantine Triad. A protective deity of Egypt's southern border with Nubia, she came to personify the former annual flooding of the Nile and to serve as a war, hunting, and fertility goddess.
Montu was a falcon-god of war in the ancient Egyptian religion, an embodiment of the conquering vitality of the pharaoh. He was particularly worshipped in Upper Egypt and in the district of Thebes.
[Ramesses II] whom victory was foretold as he came from the womb,
Whom valor was given while in the egg,
Bull firm of heart as he treads the arena,
Godly king going forth like Montu on victory day.
Mehet-Weret or Mehturt is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood".
Abu Simbel is a historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. It is located on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km (140 mi) southwest of Aswan. The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. Their huge external rock relief figures of Ramesses II have become iconic. His wife, Nefertari, and children can be seen in smaller figures by his feet. Sculptures inside the Great Temple commemorate Ramesses II's heroic leadership at the Battle of Kadesh.
Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological digs on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979, along with other examples of Upper Egyptian architecture, as part of the "Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae".
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Taweret is the protective goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" means "she who is great" or simply "great one", a common pacificatory address to dangerous deities. The deity is typically depicted as a bipedal female hippopotamus with feline attributes, pendulous female human breasts, the limbs and paws of a lion, and the back and tail of a Nile crocodile. She commonly bears the epithets "Lady of Heaven", "Mistress of the Horizon", "She Who Removes Water", "Mistress of Pure Water", and "Lady of the Birth House".
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re, usually depicted as sun disk or right wedjat-eye, is an entity in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as an extension of the sun god Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, but it often behaves as an independent goddess, a feminine counterpart to Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. This goddess, also known with the theonym Wedjat, can be equated with several particular deities, including Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet, Raet-Tawy, and Mut. The eye goddess acts as mother, sibling, consort, and daughter of the sun god. She is his partner in the creative cycle in which he begets the renewed form of himself that is born at dawn. The eye's violent aspect defends Ra against the agents of disorder that threaten his rule. This dangerous aspect of the eye goddess is often represented by a lioness or by the uraeus, or cobra, a symbol of protection and royal authority. The disastrous fury and rampages of the eye goddess and the efforts of the gods to appease her are a prominent motif in Egyptian mythology.
Sehel Island is located in the Nile, about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Aswan in southern Egypt. It is a large island, and is roughly halfway between the city and the upstream Aswan Low Dam.
The Famine Stela is an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs located on Sehel Island in the Nile near Aswan in Egypt, which tells of a seven-year period of drought and famine during the reign of pharaoh Djoser of the Third Dynasty. It is thought that the stele was inscribed during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled from 332 to 31 BC.
Ra or Re was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon-day sun. Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was believed to have ruled as the first pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky.
Heqet, sometimes spelled Heket, is an Egyptian goddess of fertility, identified with Hathor, represented in the form of a frog.
The Temple of Satet or Satis was an ancient Egyptian temple dedicated to the goddess Satet, a personification of the Nile inundation. The temple was located on the Nile Valley island of Elephantine, Egypt. Founded during the late Predynastic Period around 3200 BC, it was enlarged and renovated several times from the Early Dynastic Period onwards over the next 3000 years until the Ptolemaic Period. The temple of Satet is the best example of an ancient Egyptian temple whose construction is attested over the entire pharaonic period.
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