Hathor
The feminine goddess par excellence in ancient Egypt, Hathor was a
pre-Dynastic goddess who gained enormous popularity early on. Her name is
translated as "the House of Horus", which may be a reference to her as the
embodiment of the sky in her role of the Celestial Cow, being that which
surrounds the decidedly sky-oriented hawk-deity, Horus, when he takes
wing. If Horus was the god associated with the living king, Hathor was the
god associated with the living queen.
In earlier periods she was most often depicted as a full cow with the
sundisk between her horns or as a slender woman wearing the
horns-and-a-sundisk headdress (which may or may not have a uraeus upon
it). She was also shown as a hippopotamus, a falcon, a cobra, or a
lioness, however these were not as frequent as the woman or the cow. While
there are some depictions of Hathor as a woman with a cow's head, this is
mainly found only in the later periods.
Hathor's symbology included such items as sistra (a type of rattle), the
horns-and-sundisk headdress (in much later times incorporated into the
attire of Isis), the menat (a type of ritual necklace that may have been
used for percussive music), and mirrors. Many ancient mirrors and sistra
decorated with smiling, often nude Hathors on them have been uncovered
over the years, and Hathor's visage (with cow ears) commonly appeared at
the top of stone columns in Egyptian temples, many of which can still be
seen today. She flourished in Ta-Netjer ("Land of God" -- modern day
Dendera) in Upper Egypt and her priests included both men and women, many
of whom were dancers, singers, or musicians as the arts fell under
Hathor's domain.
Priests of Hathor were also oracles and midwives, and
people could go to some temples of Hathor to have their dreams interpreted
by her priests. Hathor's protection was invoked over children and pregnant
women.
Hathor, as the Eye of Ra, "becomes" Sakhmet in the story "The Destruction
of Mankind". Engraved into one of the shrines of Tutankhamen's tomb, the
story tells how Hathor, at the request of her father (Ra), turns into
Sakhmet in order to punish humans for transgressing against him. When she
nearly wipes out all of humanity, Ra tries to stop her and, failing in
that, contrives to get her drunk, whereupon she immediately forgets what
it was she was doing and goes back to being Hathor.
Hathor also appears as
a minor character in "The Contendings of Horus and Seth". Her father (Ra)
falls into a black mood so Hathor sets forth to cheer him up. Removing her
clothing, she dances around his throne until he smiles again.
An additional myth, sometimes called "The Distant Goddess", tells of how
Hathor became angry with Ra and wandered away from Egypt. Great sadness
falls over the land and Ra, lost without his Eye, decides to fetch her
back. However, Hathor has now become a deadly wild cat who destroys all
that approaches her, and so no man or god will volunteer to go get her.
Thoth eventually agrees to lure her back and, dressed in disguise, manages
to coax the angry goddess to return to Egypt by telling her stories. Back
in her homeland, she bathes in the Nile and once again settles into her
normally gentle demeanor, but not before the waters turn red from the
effort of cooling her rage. In some versions of this story it is Tefnut,
not Hathor, who wanders away from Egypt, and Shu, not Thoth, who brings
her back.
Hathor is associated with numerous other Egyptian goddesses. Her
connections with Bastet helped to "soften up" that deity's visage, and as
discussed previously Hathor was the other side of the Sakhmet coin. Hathor
also seems to have absorbed many of the properties of Bat (another
pre-Dynastic cow goddess), who is depicted at the top of the famous Narmer
palette overseeing the events detailed therein.
Hathor is also known as the "Lady to the Limit" ("limit" meaning the edges
of the known universe) and the "Lady of the West"; her image is sometimes
seen on funerary depiction as she stands behind Osiris, welcoming the dead
to their new home. Other titles of Hathor include the "Divine (or
Celestial) Cow", "Mistress of Heaven", and "Lady of Gold", the last two of
which were sometimes attributed to the queens of ancient Egypt. Hathor was
also known as the "Lady of Greenstone and Malachite" due to her being
regarded as a goddess of the desert fringes where such mines existed.
The Greeks called Hathor by the name of their goddess, Aphrodite. In the
very late stages of Egyptian religion (over two millennia after Hathor had
first appeared) she became almost totally absorbed into Isis (who
acquired, aside from Hathor's headdress, the sistrum as well), resulting
in frequent mistaken identity between the two. There are, however, subtle
differences. When Isis is shown with the horns she is also (usually) shown
with either the vulture headdress (which was associated with Mut, a
goddess of Thebes), winged, or wearing a multi-colored feathered dress.
There are of course exceptions (such as in the tomb of Horemheb), in which
case knowledge of hieroglyphs is necessary to discern which goddess is
which.
At the temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel, Nefertari is shown as Hathor in
many places, and Ramses II (the husband of Nefertari) is shown in one
sanctuary receiving milk from Hathor the cow. When a child was born in
Egypt, seven Hathors (somewhat like European fairy godmothers) would
appear to "speak with one mouth" and determine the child's fate. Hathor's
own child was Ihy, who was worshipped in Dendera with her and
Horus-Behdety. Like his mother, Ihy was a god of music and dancing, and
was always depicted as a child bearing a sistrum.
The name of Hathor in hieroglyphs.
Related information
Other names
Hwt-Hert
Het-Heru
Het-hert
Pronunciation
{hat'hor}
Source:Encyclopedia Mythica - Article: Hathor
by Stephanie Cass