Editing Hathor (section)

==Worship==

[[File:King Menkaure and two goddesses, plaster cast of original in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Egypt, Giza, Valley Temple of Menkaure, Dynasty 4, c. 2490-2472 BC - Harvard Semitic Museum - Cambridge, MA - DSC06126.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Refer to caption|Copy of a statue of Hathor (center) with a goddess personifying the [[Hare nome|Fifteenth Nome of Upper Egypt]] (left) and the [[Fourth Dynasty of Egypt|Fourth Dynasty]] king [[Menkaure]] (right); 26th century BC]]

===Relationship with royalty===

During the Early Dynastic Period, [[Neith]] was the preeminent goddess at the royal court,{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=48–49}} while in the Fourth Dynasty, Hathor became the goddess most closely linked with the king.{{sfn|Hollis|2009|p=2}} [[Sneferu]], the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, may have built a temple to her, and [[Neferhetepes]], a daughter of [[Djedefra]], was the first recorded [[priestess of Hathor]].{{sfn|Gillam|1995|p=215}} Old Kingdom rulers donated resources only to temples dedicated to particular kings or to deities closely connected with kingship. Hathor was one of the few deities to receive such donations.{{sfn|Goedicke|1978|pp=118–123}} Late Old Kingdom rulers especially promoted the cult of Hathor in the provinces, as a way of binding those regions to the royal court. She may have absorbed the traits of contemporary provincial goddesses.{{sfn|Morris|2011|pp=75–76}}

Many female royals, though not reigning queens, held positions in the cult during the Old Kingdom.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=222–226, 231}} [[Mentuhotep&nbsp;II]], who became the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom despite having no relation to the Old Kingdom rulers, sought to legitimize his rule by portraying himself as Hathor's son. The first images of the Hathor-cow suckling the king date to his reign, and several priestesses of Hathor were depicted as though they were his wives, although he may not have actually married them.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|p=231}}{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=135–136}} In the course of the Middle Kingdom, queens were increasingly seen as directly embodying the goddess, just as the king embodied Ra.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|p=234}} The emphasis on the queen as Hathor continued through the New Kingdom. Queens were portrayed with the headdress of Hathor beginning in the late Eighteenth Dynasty. An image of the [[sed festival]] of [[Amenhotep&nbsp;III]], meant to celebrate and renew his rule, shows the king together with Hathor and his queen [[Tiye]], which could mean that the king symbolically married the goddess in the course of the festival.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=132–133}}

[[Hatshepsut]], a woman who ruled as a pharaoh in the early New Kingdom, emphasized her relationship to Hathor in a different way.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=105–107}} She used [[ancient Egyptian royal titulary|names and titles]] that linked her to a variety of goddesses, including Hathor, so as to legitimize her rule in what was normally a male position.{{sfn|Robins|1999|pp=107–112}} She built several temples to Hathor and placed her own [[Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut|mortuary temple]], which incorporated a chapel dedicated to the goddess, at [[Deir el-Bahari]], which had been a cult site of Hathor since the Middle Kingdom.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=105–107}}

The preeminence of Amun during the New Kingdom gave greater visibility to his consort Mut, and in the course of the period, Isis began appearing in roles that traditionally belonged to Hathor alone, such as that of the goddess in the solar barque. Despite the growing prominence of these deities, Hathor remained important, particularly in relation to fertility, sexuality, and queenship, throughout the New Kingdom.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=119–120, 178–179}}

After the New Kingdom, Isis increasingly overshadowed Hathor and other goddesses as she took on their characteristics.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|p=129}} In the [[Ptolemaic period]] (305–30 BC), when [[Greeks]] governed Egypt and [[Ancient Greek religion|their religion]] developed a complex relationship with that of Egypt, the [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] adopted and modified the Egyptian ideology of kingship. Beginning with [[Arsinoe&nbsp;II]], wife of [[Ptolemy&nbsp;II]], the Ptolemies closely linked their queens with Isis and with several Greek goddesses, particularly their own goddess of love and sexuality, [[Aphrodite]].{{sfn|Selden|1998|pp=312, 339}} Nevertheless, when the Greeks referred to Egyptian gods by the names of their own gods (a practice called ''[[interpretatio graeca]]''), they sometimes called Hathor Aphrodite.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=141}} Traits of Isis, Hathor, and Aphrodite were all combined to justify the treatment of Ptolemaic queens as goddesses. Thus, the poet [[Callimachus]] alluded to the myth of Hathor's lost lock of hair in the ''[[Aetia (Callimachus)|Aetia]]'' when praising [[Berenice&nbsp;II]] for sacrificing her own hair to Aphrodite,{{sfn|Selden|1998|pp=346–348}} and iconographic traits that Isis and Hathor shared, such as the bovine horns and vulture headdress, appeared on images portraying Ptolemaic queens as Aphrodite.{{sfn|Cheshire|2007|pp=157–163}}

===Temples in Egypt===

[[File:Dendera hypostyle hall crosswise.jpg|thumb|alt=Room with tall stone columns topped by faces of women. The columns, walls, and ceiling are covered in painted reliefs.|[[Hypostyle]] hall of the [[Temple of Hathor at Dendera]], first century AD]]

More temples were dedicated to Hathor than to any other Egyptian goddess.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|p=166}} During the Old Kingdom her most important center of worship was in the region of [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]], where "Hathor of the Sycamore" was worshipped at many sites throughout the [[Memphite Necropolis]]. During the New Kingdom era, the temple of Hathor of the Southern Sycamore was her main temple in Memphis.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=219–221}} At that site she was described as the daughter of the city's main deity, [[Ptah]].{{sfn|Vischak|2001|p=82}} The cult of Ra and Atum at Heliopolis, northeast of Memphis, included a temple to Hathor-Nebethetepet that was probably built in the Middle Kingdom. A willow and a sycamore tree stood near the sanctuary and may have been worshipped as manifestations of the goddess.{{sfn|Quirke|2001|pp=102–105}} A few cities farther north in the [[Nile Delta]], such as [[Yamu]] and [[Terenuthis]], also had temples to her.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=108, 111}}

Dendera, Hathor's oldest temple in Upper Egypt, dates to at least to the Fourth Dynasty.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|p=227}} After the end of the Old Kingdom it surpassed her Memphite temples in importance.{{sfn|Vischak|2001|p=83}} Many kings made additions to the temple complex through Egyptian history. The last version of the temple was built in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods and is today one of the best-preserved Egyptian temples from that time.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=149–151}}

As the rulers of the Old Kingdom made an effort to develop towns in Upper and [[Middle Egypt]], several cult centers of Hathor were founded across the region, at sites such as [[Cusae]], [[Akhmim]], and [[Naga ed-Der]].{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=226, 229}} In the [[First Intermediate Period]] (c. 2181–2055 BC) her cult statue from Dendera was periodically carried to the Theban necropolis. During the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, Mentuhotep{{nbsp}}II established a permanent cult center for her in the necropolis at Deir el-Bahari.{{sfn|Goedicke|1991|pp=245, 252}} The nearby village of [[Deir el-Medina]], home to the tomb workers of the necropolis during the New Kingdom, also contained temples of Hathor. One continued to function and was periodically rebuilt as late as the Ptolemaic Period, centuries after the village was abandoned.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=189–190}}

In the Old Kingdom, most priests of Hathor, including the highest ranks, were women. Many of these women were members of the royal family.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=240–241}} In the course of the Middle Kingdom, women were increasingly excluded from the highest priestly positions, at the same time that queens were becoming more closely tied to Hathor's cult. Thus, non-royal women disappeared from the high ranks of Hathor's priesthood,{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=233–234}} although women continued to serve as musicians and singers in temple cults across Egypt.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=243–244}}

The most frequent temple rite for any deity was the daily offering ritual, in which the cult image, or statue, of a deity would be clothed and given food.{{sfn|Thompson|2001|p=328}} The daily ritual was largely the same in every Egyptian temple,{{sfn|Thompson|2001|p=328}} although the goods given as offerings could vary according to which deity received them.{{sfn|Meeks|Favard-Meeks|1996|pp=126–128}} Wine and beer were common offerings in all temples, but especially in rituals in Hathor's honor,{{sfn|Poo|2010|pp=2–3}} and she and the goddesses related to her often received sistra and ''menat'' necklaces.{{sfn|Meeks|Favard-Meeks|1996|pp=126–128}} In Late and Ptolemaic times, they were also offered a pair of mirrors, representing the sun and the moon.{{sfn|Derriks|2001|pp=421–422}}

===Festivals===

Many of Hathor's annual festivals were celebrated with drinking and dancing that served a ritual purpose. Revelers at these festivals may have aimed to reach a state of [[religious ecstasy]], which was otherwise rare or nonexistent in ancient Egyptian religion. Graves-Brown suggests that celebrants in Hathor's festivals aimed to reach an [[altered state of consciousness]] to allow them interact with the divine realm.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=166–169}} An example is the Festival of Drunkenness, commemorating the return of the Eye of Ra, which was celebrated on the twentieth day of the [[Thout|month of Thout]] at temples to Hathor and to other Eye goddesses. It was celebrated as early as the Middle Kingdom, but it is best known from Ptolemaic and Roman times.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=166–169}} The dancing, eating and drinking that took place during the Festival of Drunkenness represented the opposite of the sorrow, hunger, and thirst that the Egyptians associated with death. Whereas the rampages of the Eye of Ra brought death to humans, the Festival of Drunkenness celebrated life, abundance, and joy.{{sfn|Frandsen|1999|pp=131, 142–143}}

In a local Theban festival known as the [[Beautiful Festival of the Valley]], which began to be celebrated in the Middle Kingdom, the [[cult image]] of Amun from the [[Precinct of Amun-Re|Temple of Karnak]] visited the temples in the Theban Necropolis while members of the community went to the tombs of their deceased relatives to drink, eat, and celebrate.{{sfn|Teeter|2011|pp=67–68}} Hathor was not involved in this festival until the early New Kingdom,{{sfn|Sadek|1988|p=49}} after which Amun's overnight stay in the temples at Deir el-Bahari came to be seen as his sexual union with her.{{sfn|Teeter|2011|p=70}}

Several temples in Ptolemaic times, including that of Dendera, observed the Egyptian new year with a series of ceremonies in which images of the temple deity were supposed to be revitalized by contact with the sun god. On the days leading up to the new year, Dendera's statue of Hathor was taken to the ''[[wabet]]'', a specialized room in the temple, and placed under a ceiling decorated with images of the sky and sun. On the first day of the new year, the first day of the [[Thoth (month)|month of Thoth]], the Hathor image was carried up to the roof to be bathed in genuine sunlight.{{sfn|Meeks|Favard-Meeks|1996|pp=193–198}}

The best-documented festival focused on Hathor is another Ptolemaic celebration, the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion. It took place over fourteen days in the month of [[Epiphi]].{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|p=93}}{{sfn|Richter|2016|p=4}} Hathor's cult image from Dendera was carried by boat to several temple sites to visit the gods of those temples. The endpoint of the journey was the Temple of Horus at [[Edfu]], where the Hathor statue from Dendera met that of Horus of Edfu and the two were placed together.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|p=94}} On one day of the festival, these images were carried out to a shrine where primordial deities such as the sun god and the [[Ennead]] were said to be buried. The texts say the divine couple performed offering rites for these entombed gods.{{sfn|Verner|2013|pp=437–439}} Many Egyptologists regard this festival as a [[hieros gamos|ritual marriage]] between Horus and Hathor, although Martin Stadler challenges this view, arguing that it instead represented the rejuvenation of the buried creator gods.{{sfn|Stadler|2008|pp=4–6}} C. J. Bleeker thought the Beautiful Reunion was another celebration of the return of the Distant Goddess, citing allusions in the temple's festival texts to the myth of the solar eye.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=98–101}} Barbara Richter argues that the festival represented all three things at once. She points out that the birth of Horus and Hathor's son Ihy was celebrated at Dendera nine months after the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion, implying that Hathor's visit to Horus represented Ihy's conception.{{sfn|Richter|2016|pp=4, 202–205}}

The third month of the [[Egyptian calendar]], [[Hathor (month)|Hathor or Athyr]], was named for the goddess. Festivities in her honor took place throughout the month, although they are not recorded in the texts from Dendera.{{sfn|Verner|2013|p=43}}

===Worship outside Egypt===

[[File:Temple of Hathor in Timna Park in summer 2011 (1).JPG|thumb|upright|right|alt=Foundations of a small stone wall at the base of a desert cliff|Remains of the Hathor shrine in the [[Timna Valley]]]]

Egyptian kings as early as the Old Kingdom donated goods to the temple of Baalat Gebal in Byblos, using the syncretism of Baalat with Hathor to cement their close trading relationship with Byblos.{{sfn|Espinel|2002|pp=116–118}} A temple to Hathor as Lady of Byblos was built during the reign of [[Thutmose&nbsp;III]], although it may simply have been a shrine within the temple of Baalat.{{sfn|Traunecker|2001|p=110}} After the breakdown of the New Kingdom, Hathor's prominence in Byblos diminished along with Egypt's trade links to the city. A few artifacts from the early first millennium BC suggest that the Egyptians began equating Baalat with Isis at that time.{{sfn|Zernecke|2013|pp=227–230}} A myth about Isis's presence in Byblos, related by the Greek author [[Plutarch]] in his work ''On Isis and Osiris'' in the 2nd century AD, suggests that by his time Isis had entirely supplanted Hathor in the city.{{sfn|Hollis|2009|pp=4–5}}

A pendant found in a [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] tomb at [[Pylos]], from the 16th century BC, bears Hathor's face. Its presence in the tomb suggests the Mycenaeans may have known that the Egyptians connected Hathor with the [[afterlife]].{{sfn|Lobell|2020}}

Egyptians in the [[Sinai Peninsula]] built a few temples in the region. The largest was a complex dedicated primarily to Hathor as patroness of mining at [[Serabit el-Khadim]], on the west side of the peninsula.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=238–239}} It was occupied from the middle of the Middle Kingdom to near the end of the New.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=55–57}} The [[Timna Valley]], on the fringes of the Egyptian empire on the east side of the peninsula, was the site of seasonal mining expeditions during the New Kingdom. It included a shrine to Hathor that was probably deserted during the off-season. The local [[Midianites]], whom the Egyptians used as part of the mining workforce, may have given offerings to Hathor as their overseers did. After the Egyptians abandoned the site in the [[Twentieth Dynasty]], however, the Midianites converted the shrine to a tent shrine devoted to their own deities.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=59–69}}

In contrast, the Nubians in the south fully incorporated Hathor into their religion. During the New Kingdom, when most of Nubia was under Egyptian control, pharaohs dedicated several temples in Nubia to Hathor, such as those at [[Faras]] and [[Mirgissa]].{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=227–230}} Amenhotep{{nbsp}}III and [[Ramesses&nbsp;II]] both built temples in Nubia that celebrated their respective queens as manifestations of female deities, including Hathor: Amenhotep's wife Tiye at [[Sedeinga]]{{sfn|Morkot|2012|pp=325–326}} and Ramesses's wife [[Nefertari]] at the [[Abu Simbel temples#Small Temple|Small Temple of Abu Simbel]].{{sfn|Fisher|2012|pp=357–358}} The independent [[Kingdom of Kush]], which emerged in Nubia after the collapse of the New Kingdom, based its beliefs about [[List of monarchs of Kush|Kushite kings]] on the royal ideology of Egypt. Therefore, Hathor, Isis, Mut, and Nut were all seen as the mythological mother of each Kushite king and equated with his female relatives, such as the ''[[kandake]]'', the Kushite queen or [[queen mother]], who had prominent roles in Kushite religion.{{sfn|Kendall|2010b}} At [[Jebel Barkal]], a site sacred to Amun, the Kushite king [[Taharqa]] built a pair of temples, one dedicated to Hathor and [[Temple of Mut, Jebel Barkal|one to Mut]] as consorts of Amun, replacing New Kingdom Egyptian temples that may have been dedicated to these same goddesses.{{sfn|Kendall|2010a|pp=1, 12}} But Isis was the most prominent of the Egyptian goddesses worshipped in Nubia, and her status there increased over time. Thus, in the Meroitic period of Nubian history (c. 300 BC{{snd}}AD 400), Hathor appeared in temples mainly as a companion to Isis.{{sfn|Yellin|2012|pp=128, 133}}

===Popular worship===

[[File:Plaque of a woman giving birth assisted by Hathor.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Plaque showing a woman squatting while cow-headed women stand at either side|Ptolemaic plaque of a woman giving birth assisted by two figures of Hathor, fourth to first century BC]]

In addition to formal and public rituals at temples, Egyptians privately worshipped deities for personal reasons, including at their homes. Birth was hazardous for both mother and child in ancient Egypt, yet children were much desired. Thus fertility and safe childbirth are among the most prominent concerns in popular religion, and fertility deities such as Hathor and [[Taweret]] were commonly worshipped in household shrines. Egyptian women squatted on bricks while giving birth, and the only known surviving birth brick from ancient Egypt is decorated with an image of a woman holding her child flanked by images of Hathor.{{sfn|Ritner|2008|pp=173–175, 181}} In Roman times, [[terracotta]] figurines, sometimes found in a domestic context, depicted a woman with an elaborate headdress exposing her genitals, as Hathor did to cheer up Ra.{{sfn|Morris|2007|pp=218–219}} The meaning of these figurines is not known,{{sfn|Sandri|2012|pp=637–638}} but they are often thought to represent Hathor or Isis combined with Aphrodite making a gesture that represented fertility or protection against evil.{{sfn|Morris|2007|pp=218–219}}

Hathor was one of a handful of deities, including Amun, Ptah, and Thoth, who were commonly prayed to for help with personal problems.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=349–351}} Many Egyptians left offerings at temples or small shrines dedicated to the gods they prayed to. Most offerings to Hathor were used for their symbolism, not for their intrinsic value. Cloths painted with images of Hathor were common, as were plaques and figurines depicting her animal forms. Different types of offerings may have symbolized different goals on the part of the donor, but their meaning is usually unknown. Images of Hathor alluded to her mythical roles, like depictions of the maternal cow in the marsh.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=119, 347, 354–355}} Offerings of [[Sistrum|sistra]] may have been meant to appease the goddess's dangerous aspects and bring out her positive ones,{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=157–158}} while [[phalli]] represented a prayer for fertility, as shown by an inscription found on one example.{{sfn|Lesko|2008|pp=203–204}}

Some Egyptians also left written prayers to Hathor, inscribed on [[stela]]e or written as graffiti.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=349–351}} Prayers to some deities, such as Amun, show that they were thought to punish wrongdoers and heal people who repented for their misbehavior. In contrast, prayers to Hathor mention only the benefits she could grant, such as abundant food during life and a well-provisioned burial after death.{{sfn|Sadek|1988|pp=89, 114–115}}

===Funerary practices===

[[File:Relief de Séthi I et Hathor - Musée du Louvre Antiquités Egyptiennes N 124 ; B 7 ; Champollion n 1.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=Relief of Hathor holding a man's hand and lifting her menat necklace for him to grasp|Hathor welcoming [[Seti&nbsp;I]] into the afterlife, 13th century BC]]

As an afterlife deity, Hathor appeared frequently in funerary texts and art. In the early New Kingdom, for instance, she was one of the three deities most commonly found in royal tomb decoration, the others being Osiris and [[Anubis]].{{sfn|Lesko|1999|p=110}} In that period she often appeared as the goddess welcoming the dead into the afterlife.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|p=171}} Other images referred to her more obliquely. Reliefs in Old Kingdom tombs show men and women performing a ritual called "shaking the papyrus". The significance of this rite is not known, but inscriptions sometimes say it was performed "for Hathor", and shaking papyrus stalks produces a rustling sound that may have been likened to the rattling of a sistrum.{{sfn|Woods|2011|pp=314–316}} Other Hathoric imagery in tombs included the cow emerging from the mountain of the necropolis{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=179–180}} and the seated figure of the goddess presiding over a garden in the afterlife.{{sfn|Billing|2004|pp=42–43}} Images of Nut were often painted or incised inside coffins, indicating the coffin was her womb, from which the occupant would be reborn in the afterlife. In the Third Intermediate Period, Hathor began to be placed on the floor of the coffin, with Nut on the interior of the lid.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=39–40, 110}}

Tomb art from the Eighteenth Dynasty often shows people drinking, dancing, and playing music, as well as holding ''menat'' necklaces and sistra—all imagery that alluded to Hathor. These images may represent private feasts that were celebrated in front of tombs to commemorate the people buried there, or they may show gatherings at temple festivals such as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–136, 144–147}} Festivals were thought to allow contact between the human and divine realms, and by extension, between the living and the dead. Thus, texts from tombs often expressed a wish that the deceased would be able to participate in festivals, primarily those dedicated to Osiris.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|p=225}} Tombs' festival imagery, however, may refer to festivals involving Hathor, such as the Festival of Drunkenness, or to the private feasts, which were also closely connected with her. Drinking and dancing at these feasts may have been meant to intoxicate the celebrants, as at the Festival of Drunkenness, allowing them to commune with the spirits of the deceased.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–136, 144–147}}

Hathor was said to supply offerings to deceased people as early as the Old Kingdom, and spells to enable both men and women to join her retinue in the afterlife appeared as early as the Coffin Texts.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=251–254}} Some burial goods that portray deceased women as goddesses may depict these women as followers of Hathor, although whether the imagery refers to Hathor or Isis is not known. The link between Hathor and deceased women was maintained into the Roman Period, the last stage of ancient Egyptian religion before its [[decline of ancient Egyptian religion|extinction]].{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=384–389}}