Editing Neith (section)

==Symbolism==
[[File:Bronze statuette of Neith. She wears the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. The hieroglyphic inscriptions, partially erased, mention the name of Padihor. From Egypt. Late Period. The British Museum, London.jpg|thumb|Bronze statuette of Neith, wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt; the partially erased hieroglyphic inscriptions mention the name of Padihor - The British Museum, London]]
In her usual representations, she is portrayed as a fierce deity, a woman wearing the Red Crown, with a bow, occasionally holding or using two arrows. Her symbolism depicted most often is of a goddess of war and of hunting. According to Wilkinson, her hieroglyphic symbol consists of two bows crossed over a shield.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=158}} The hieroglyphs of her name usually are followed by a determinative containing the archery elements. According to Fleming & Lothian, the symbol of her name is a shield symbol explained with either double bows (facing one another), intersected by two arrows (usually lashed to the bows), or, by other imagery associated with her worship. As she is connected with weaving, the symbol is sometimes suggested to be a [[shuttle (weaving)|shuttle]].<ref name="brooklyn">{{cite web |title=Neith |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/neith |website=brooklynmuseum.org |access-date=6 July 2024}}</ref>{{sfn|Watterson|1984|p=174}} However, according to scholar [[Arthur Evans]], the bow of Neith in her symbol represented two bows in a sheath, and it was "convincingly" explained over the shuttle hypothesis, by Egyptologist [[Margaret Murray]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Arthur |title=The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos: Volume 2 Part 1 |date=1928 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9781108061025 |page=49 |url=https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Palace_of_Minos/iZooAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |access-date=20 April 2025}}</ref> Further, in a research project assessing fidelity of unpainted hieroglyphic symbols with their polychrome hieroglyphic counterparts, scholar David Nunn found another object's virtually identically positioned [[right triangles]] "certainly difficult to see [...] as conical cakes[,]" though still positively identified the foreground object with the two bows as "a package[,]" concluding: "No conclusion can be reached as to [its] exact nature."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nunn |first1=David |title=A Palaeography of Polychrome Hieroglyphs |url=https://www.phrp.be/Palaeography.php |website=The Polychrome Hieroglyph Research Project |publisher=Université Libre de Bruxelles - Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences sociales |access-date=20 April 2025}}</ref> Her symbol also identified the city of Sais.{{sfn|Fleming|Lothian|1997|p=62}} This symbol was displayed on top of her head in Egyptian art. In her form as a [[war goddess|goddess of war]], she was said to make the weapons of warriors and to guard their bodies when they died.

[[File:791 800x800.jpg|thumb|King [[Tutankhamun]]'s bow case as it relates to the foreground object.]]

[[File:Illustration from Pantheon Egyptien by Leon Jean Joseph Dubois, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 16.jpg|thumb|Neith illustration by Dubois in Champollion's ''Egyptian Pantheon'']]

As a deity, Neith is normally shown carrying the [[Was (sceptre)|was]] scepter (symbol of rule and power) and the [[ankh]] (symbol of life). She is associated with [[Mehet-Weret]], as a cow who gives birth to the sun daily, whose name means "Great Flood."<ref name="touregy">{{cite web |title=Nit (Neith), Goddess of Weaving, War, Hunting and the Red Crown, Creator Deity, Mother of Ra |url=https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nit.htm |website=touregypt.net |access-date=6 July 2024}}</ref>{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=157, 174}} In these forms, she is associated with the creation of both the primeval time and the daily "re-creation". As protectress of Ra or the king, she is represented as a [[uraeus]].{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=158}} In time, this led to her being considered as the [[personification]] of the primordial waters of [[Creation myth#Egyptian|creation]].<ref name="worldhis">{{cite web |title=Neith |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Neith/ |website=worldhistory.org |access-date=6 July 2024}}</ref>

Neith is one of the most ancient deities associated with ancient Egyptian culture. [[Flinders Petrie]]{{sfn|Petrie|Mace|1901|p=16}} noted the earliest depictions of her standards were known in predynastic periods, as can be seen from a representation of a barque bearing her crossed arrow standards in the Predynastic Period, as is displayed in the [[Ashmolean Museum]], Oxford.

Her first anthropomorphic representations occur in the early dynastic period, on a diorite vase of King Ny-Netjer of the Second Dynasty. The vase was found in the [[Pyramid of Djoser|Step Pyramid of Djoser]] (Third Dynasty) at Saqqara. That her worship predominated the early dynastic periods is demonstrated by a preponderance of theophoric names (personal names that incorporate the name of a deity) within which Neith appears as an element. Predominance of Neith's name in nearly forty percent of early dynastic names, and particularly in the names of four royal women of the First Dynasty, clearly emphasizes the importance of this goddess in relation to the early society of Egypt, with special emphasis on association with the Royal House.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=48-49}}

In the very early periods of Egyptian history, the main iconographic representations of this goddess appear to have been limited to her hunting and war characteristics, although there is no Egyptian mythological reference to support the concept that this was her primary function as a deity.{{sfn|Watterson|1984|p=176}}

It has been theorized that Neith's primary cult point in the Old Kingdom was established in Saïs (modern Sa el-Hagar) by [[Hor-Aha]] of the First Dynasty, in an effort to placate the residents of Lower Egypt by the ruler of the unified country.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Hart |first=George |title=The Routledge dictionary of Egyptian gods and goddesses |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-34495-1 |edition=2nd |location=London}}</ref> Textual and iconographic evidence indicates that she was a national goddess for Old Kingdom Egypt, with her own sanctuary in Memphis, indicating the high regard held for her. There, she was known as "North of her Wall", as counterpoise to [[Ptah]]'s "South of his Wall" epithet.<ref name=":2" /> While Neith is generally regarded as a deity of Lower Egypt, her worship was not consistently located in that delta region. Her cult reached its height in Saïs and apparently in Memphis in the Old Kingdom.{{sfn|Lesko|1999}}{{page needed|date=December 2024}}<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |title=Egyptian Gods & Goddesses |date=2014 |publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing in association with Rosen Educational Services |isbn=978-1-62275-155-6 |editor-last=Deaver |editor-first=Johnathan |series=Gods and Goddesses of mythology |location=New York}}</ref> and remained important, although to a lesser extent, through the Middle and New Kingdom. Her cult regained cultural prominence again during the [[Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt|Twenty-sixth Dynasty]] when worship at Saïs flourished again,<ref name=":4" /> as well as at Esna in Upper Egypt.

Neith's symbol and part of her [[hieroglyph]] also bore a resemblance to a [[loom]],{{sfn|Simon|2002|p=275}} and so in later syncretisation of Egyptian myths by the Greek ruling class of that time she was conflated with [[Athena]], a Greek deity of war and weaving.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=157}}

Sometimes Neith was pictured as a woman [[Breastfeeding|nursing]] a baby crocodile, and she then was addressed with the title, "Nurse of Crocodiles",<ref name=":14"/> reflecting a southern provincial mythology in Upper Egypt that she served as the mother of the crocodile god, Sobek. As the mother of Ra, in her [[Mehet-Weret]] form, she was sometimes described as the "Great Cow who gave birth to Ra". As a maternal figure (beyond being the birth-mother of the sun-god Ra), Neith is associated with Sobek as her son (as early as the Pyramid Texts), but in later religious conventions that paired deities, no male deity is consistently identified with her in a pair and so, she often is represented without one.<ref name=":33">{{Cite book |last=Pinch |first=Geraldine |title=Egyptian myth: a very short introduction |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-280346-7 |series=Very short introductions |location=Oxford}}</ref> Later triad associations made with her have little or no religious or mythological supporting references, appearing to have been made by political or regional associations only.

Some modern writers assert that they may interpret that as her being '[[Androgyny|androgynous]]', since Neith is the creator capable of giving birth without a partner ([[Asexually reproducing|asexually]]) and without association of creation with sexual imagery, as seen in the myths of Atum and other creator deities; which in turn led to her being accredited as the creator of birth itself.<ref name="egmu1">{{cite web |title=Deities in Ancient Egypt - Neith |url=https://egyptianmuseum.org/deities-neith |website=egyptianmuseum.org/ |access-date=4 July 2024}}</ref> However, her name always appears as feminine. [[Erik Hornung]] interprets that in the Eleventh Hour of the [[Amduat]], Neith's name appears written with a phallus.<ref>''Das Amduat'', '''Teil I''': ''Text'': 188, No. 800.(Äg. Abh., Band 7, Wiesbaden) 1963</ref> In reference to Neith's function as creator with both male and female characteristics, Peter Kaplony has said in the ''Lexikon der Ägyptologie'': "Die Deutung von Neith als ''Njt'' "Verneinung" ist sekundär. Neith ist die weibliche Entsprechung zu ''Nw(w''), dem Gott der Urflut (Nun and Naunet)."{{sfn|Schlichting|1982|p=393}} She was considered to be eldest of the Ancient Egyptian deities. Neith is said to have been "born the first, in the time when as yet there had been no birth".{{sfn|St. Clair|1898|p=176}}

In the Pyramid Texts, Neith is paired with the goddess Selket as the two braces for the sky, which places these goddesses as the supports for the heavens (see PT 1040a-d, following J. Gwyn Griffths, ''The Conflict of Horus and Seth'', (London, 1961) p.&nbsp;1). This ties in with the vignette in [[The Contendings of Horus and Seth]] when, as the most ancient among them, Neith is asked by the deities to decide who should rule. She was appealed to as an arbiter in the dispute between Horus and Seth. In her message of reply, Neith selects Horus, and says she will "cause the sky to crash to the earth" if he is not selected.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=157}}

The [[click beetle]] (likely specifically ''agrypnus notodonta'') is one of the beetles depicted in ancient Egyptian art. The shape of the beetle resembles the shape of some ancient Egyptian shields, and necklaces with beads shaped like the beetle have been found. Additionally, the beetles have been found depicted as part of a symbol of Neith.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Haynes |first=Dawn |url=https://scholar.sun.ac.za/bitstream/10019.1/79920/1/haynes_symbolism_2013.pdf |title=The Symbolism and Significance of the Butterfly in Ancient Egypt}}</ref> This association appears as early as the Protodynastic period, and may be the origin of one of Neith's stylized cult signs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hendrickx |first=Stan |date=1996 |title=Two Protodynastic Objects in Brussels and the Origin of the Bilobate Cult-Sign of Neith |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3822112 |journal=The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology |volume=82 |pages=23–42 |doi=10.2307/3822112 |issn=0307-5133 |jstor=3822112|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The imagery of the beetle in association with Neith may have morphed over time into that of a shield.{{sfn|Lesko|1999}}{{page needed|date=December 2024}}