Mafdet | |||||||
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Name in hieroglyphs | |||||||
Genealogy | |||||||
Parents | Ra, Atum | ||||||
Siblings | Tefnut, Shu |
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Mafdet (also Mefdet, Maftet [1] ) was a goddess in the ancient Egyptian religion. She was often depicted wearing a skin of a cheetah, and protected against the bite of snakes and scorpions. She was part of the pantheon of ancient Egyptian deities that was prominent during the First Dynasty of Egypt. She was prominent during the reign of pharaoh Den whose image appears on stone vessel fragments from his tomb and is mentioned in a dedicatory entry in the Palermo Stone. Mafdet was the deification of legal justice, or possibly of capital punishment. [2] She was associated with the protection of the king's chambers and other sacred places, and with protection against venomous animals, which were seen as transgressors against Maat. In the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, she was mentioned as protecting the sun god Ra from venomous snakes. [3]
Mafdet defended Ra from threats during his daily voyage. She would hunt by night (earning the epithet "Piercer of Darkness") and ensure the coming of dawn. [4]
When Osiris was separated into pieces, Mafdet protected him while she helped bind the pieces together. [5]
Depictions in royal tombs associate the symbol of Mafdet with the symbol of Anubis, suggesting that Mafdet accompanied the gods as a hunter or executioner while Anubis fulfilled his role as messenger and attendant. [6]
In art, Mafdet was alternately shown as a feline or mongoose, a woman with such a head, or such an animal with the head of a woman. [3] The type of feline varies but is commonly interpreted as a cheetah or serval.
She also was depicted in her animal form running up the side of an executioner's staff of office. It was said that Mafdet ripped out the hearts of wrong-doers, delivering them to the pharaoh's feet like cats that present humans with rodents or birds they have killed or maimed.
During the New Kingdom, Mafdet was seen as ruling over the judgment hall in Duat where the enemies of the pharaoh were decapitated with Mafdet's claw.
Anubis, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian, is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head.
Pharaoh is the vernacular term often used for the monarchs of ancient Egypt, who ruled from the First Dynasty until the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Republic in 30 BCE. However, regardless of gender, "king" was the term used most frequently by the ancient Egyptians for their monarchs through the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom. The earliest confirmed instances of "pharaoh" used contemporaneously for a ruler were a letter to Akhenaten or an inscription possibly referring to Thutmose III.
Ammit was an ancient Egyptian goddess with the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile—the three largest "man-eating" animals known to ancient Egyptians. In ancient Egyptian religion, Ammit played an important role during the funerary ritual, the Judgment of the Dead.
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.
In Egyptian mythology, Wepwawet was originally a deity of funerary rites, war, and royalty association, whose cult centre was Asyut in Upper Egypt. His name means opener of the ways and he is often depicted as a wolf standing at the prow of a solar-boat. Some interpret that Wepwawet was seen as a scout, going out to clear routes for the army to proceed forward. One inscription from the Sinai states that Wepwawet "opens the way" to king Sekhemkhet's victory.
Wadjet, known to the Greek world as Uto or Buto among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient Egyptian local goddess of the city of Dep or Buto in Lower Egypt, which was an important site in prehistoric Egypt. Wadjet's worship originally started in the Predynastic period, but evolved over time from a local goddess to a patron goddess.
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.
Meretseger was a Theban cobra-goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, in charge with guarding and protecting the vast Theban Necropolis — on the west bank of the Nile, in front of Thebes — and especially the heavily guarded Valley of the Kings. Her cult was typical of the New Kingdom of Egypt.
Seshat was the ancient Egyptian goddess of writing, wisdom, and knowledge. She was the daughter of Thoth. She was seen as a scribe and record keeper; her name means "female scribe". She is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of sciences, accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying.
The Uraeus or Ouraeus is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt.
Djer is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid 31st century BC and reigned for c. 40 years. A mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was discovered by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, but was discarded by Émile Brugsch.
Hor-Aha is considered the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt by some Egyptologists, while others consider him the first one and corresponding to Menes. He lived around the 31st century BC and is thought to have had a long reign.
The was sceptre is a symbol that appeared often in relics, art, and hieroglyphs associated with the ancient Egyptian religion. It appears as a stylized animal head at the top of a long, straight staff with a forked end.
Den, also known as Hor-Den, Dewen, and Udimu, was the Horus name of a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period who ruled during the First Dynasty of Egypt. He is the best archaeologically-attested ruler of this period, credited with bringing prosperity to his realm.
In ancient Egypt, cats were represented in social and religious scenes dating as early as 1980 BC. Several ancient Egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat-like heads such as Mafdet, Bastet and Sekhmet, representing justice, fertility, and power, respectively. The deity Mut was also depicted as a cat and in the company of a cat.
The pschent was the double crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as Pa-sekhemty (pꜣ-sḫm.ty), the Two Powerful Ones, from which the Greek term is derived. It combined the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt.
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.
In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal, or sha, is the totemic animal of the god Set. Because Set was identified with the Greek monster Typhon, the animal is also commonly known as the Typhonian animal or Typhonic beast.
Aker was an ancient Egyptian personification of the horizon, and an earth and underworld god, believed to guard the eastern (Bakhu) and western (Manu) horizons.
The Regalia of the Pharaoh or Pharaoh's attributes are the symbolic objects of royalty in ancient Egypt. In use between 3150 and 30 BC, these attributes were specific to pharaohs, but also to certain gods such as Atum, Ra, Osiris and Horus. In Egyptian mythology, these powerful gods were considered the original holders of royal power and the first rulers of the Nile Valley.