Editing Hathor (section)

==Roles==

Hathor took many forms and appeared in a wide variety of roles.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=77, 145}} The Egyptologist Robyn Gillam suggests that these diverse forms emerged when the royal goddess promoted by the Old Kingdom court subsumed many local goddesses worshipped by the general populace, who were then treated as manifestations of her.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=217–218}} Egyptian texts often speak of the manifestations of the goddess as "Seven Hathors"{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=77, 145}} or, less commonly, of many more Hathors—as many as 362.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=71–72}} For these reasons, Gillam calls her "a type of deity rather than a single entity".{{sfn|Gillam|1995|pp=217–218}} Hathor's diversity reflects the range of traits that the Egyptians associated with goddesses. More than any other deity, she exemplifies the [[women in ancient Egypt|Egyptian perception]] of [[femininity]].{{sfn|Troy|1986|pp=53–54}}

===Sky goddess===

Hathor was given the [[epithet]]s "mistress of the sky" and "mistress of the stars", and was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which the sun god sailed, and they connected it with the waters from which, according to their [[ancient Egyptian creation myths|creation myths]], the sun emerged at the beginning of time. This cosmic mother goddess was often represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him between her horns. Like Nut, Hathor was said to give birth to the sun god each dawn.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=31–34, 46–47}}

Hathor's [[Egyptian language|Egyptian]] name was ''ḥwt-ḥrw''{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|p=130}} or ''ḥwt-ḥr''.{{sfn|Billing|2004|p=39}} It is typically translated "house of Horus" but can also be rendered as "my house is the sky".{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=25, 48}} The falcon god [[Horus]] represented, among other things, the sun and sky. The "house" referred to may be the sky in which Horus lives, or the goddess's womb from which he, as a sun god, is born each day.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=140}}

===Solar goddess===

{{further|Eye of Ra}}

Hathor was a [[solar deity]], a feminine counterpart to sun gods such as Horus and Ra, and was a member of the divine entourage that accompanied Ra as he sailed through the sky in his [[barque#Barques and barque shrines in Ancient Egypt|barque]].{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=140}} She was commonly called the "Golden One", referring to the radiance of the sun, and texts from [[Dendera Temple complex|her temple at Dendera]] say "her rays illuminate the whole earth."{{sfn|Richter|2016|pp=128, 184–185}} She was sometimes fused with another goddess, [[Nebethetepet]], whose name can mean "Lady of the Offering", "Lady of Contentment",{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=156}} or "Lady of the Vulva".{{sfn|Pinch|1993|p=155}} At Ra's cult center of [[Heliopolis (ancient Egypt)|Heliopolis]], Hathor-Nebethetepet was worshipped as his consort,{{sfn|Quirke|2001|pp=102–105}} and the Egyptologist Rudolf Anthes argued that Hathor's name referred to a mythical "house of Horus" at Heliopolis that was connected with the ideology of kingship.{{sfn|Gillam|1995|p=218}}

She was one of many goddesses to take the role of the Eye of Ra, a feminine personification of the disk of the sun and an extension of Ra's own power. Ra was sometimes portrayed inside the disk, which Troy interprets as meaning that the eye goddess was thought of as a [[womb]], from which the sun god was born. Hathor's seemingly contradictory roles as mother, wife, and daughter of Ra reflected the daily cycle of the sun. At sunset the god entered the body of the sky goddess, impregnating her and fathering the deities born from her womb at sunrise: himself and the eye goddess, who would later give birth to him. Ra gave rise to his daughter, the eye goddess, who in turn gave rise to him, her son, in a cycle of constant regeneration.{{sfn|Troy|1986|pp=21–23, 25–27}}

The Eye of Ra protected the sun god from his enemies and was often represented as a [[uraeus]], or rearing [[cobra]], or as a lioness.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|pp=129–130}} A form of the Eye of Ra known as "Hathor of the Four Faces", represented by a set of four cobras, was said to face in each of the [[cardinal directions]] to watch for threats to the sun god.{{sfn|Ritner|1990|p=39}} A group of myths, known from the [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]] (c. 1550–1070 BC) onward, describe what happens when the Eye goddess rampages uncontrolled. In the [[ancient Egyptian funerary texts|funerary text]] known as the ''[[Book of the Heavenly Cow]]'', Ra sends Hathor as the Eye of Ra to punish humans for plotting rebellion against his rule. She becomes the lioness goddess [[Sekhmet]] and massacres the rebellious humans, but Ra decides to prevent her from killing all humanity. He orders that beer be dyed red and poured out over the land. The Eye goddess drinks the beer, mistaking it for blood, and in her inebriated state reverts to being the benign and beautiful Hathor.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=169–170}} Related to this story is the myth of the Distant Goddess, from the [[Late Period of ancient Egypt|Late]] and [[Ptolemaic Kingdom|Ptolemaic]] periods. The Eye goddess, sometimes in the form of Hathor, rebels against Ra's control and rampages freely in a foreign land: [[Ancient Libya|Libya]] west of Egypt or [[Nubia]] to the south. Weakened by the loss of his Eye, Ra sends another god, such as [[Thoth]], to bring her back to him.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|pp=71–74}} Once pacified, the goddess returns to become the consort of the sun god or of the god who brings her back.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|p=130}} The two aspects of the Eye goddess—violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful—reflected the Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love".{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|pp=169–170}}

===Music, dance, and joy===

[[File:Funerary banquet of Nebamun.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.8|alt=Painting of elaborately dressed men and women. Some women clap and play flutes while others dance.|Banquet scene from the tomb chapel of [[Nebamun]], 14th century BC. Its imagery of music and dancing alludes to Hathor.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–134}}]]

Egyptian religion celebrated the sensory pleasures of life, believed to be among the gods' gifts to humanity. Egyptians ate, drank, danced, and played music at their religious festivals. They perfumed the air with flowers and [[incense]]. Many of Hathor's epithets link her to celebration; she is called the mistress of music, dance, garlands, [[myrrh]], and [[drunkenness]]. In hymns and temple reliefs, musicians play [[tambourine]]s, [[harp]]s, [[lyre]]s, and [[sistra]] in Hathor's honor.{{sfn|Finnestad|1999|pp=113–115}} The [[sistrum]], a rattle-like instrument, was particularly important in Hathor's worship. Sistra had erotic connotations and, by extension, alluded to the creation of new life.{{sfn|Manniche|2010|pp=13–14, 16–17}}

These aspects of Hathor were linked with the myth of the Eye of Ra. The Eye was pacified by beer in the story of the Destruction of Mankind. In some versions of the Distant Goddess myth, the wandering Eye's wildness abated when she was appeased with products of civilization like music, dance, and wine. The water of the annual [[flooding of the Nile]], colored red by sediment, was likened to wine, and to the red-dyed beer in the Destruction of Mankind. Festivals during the inundation therefore incorporated drink, music, and dance as a way to appease the returning goddess.{{sfn|Poo|2009|pp=153–157}} A text from the [[Temple of Edfu]] says of Hathor, "the gods play the sistrum for her, the goddesses dance for her to dispel her bad temper."{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|p=57}} A hymn to the goddess [[Raet-Tawy]] as a form of Hathor at the temple of [[Medamud]] describes the [[Festival of Drunkenness]] (Tekh Festival) as part of her mythic return to Egypt.{{sfn|Darnell|1995|p=48}} Women carry bouquets of flowers, drunken revelers play drums, and people and animals from foreign lands dance for her as she enters the temple's festival booth. The noise of the celebration drives away hostile powers and ensures the goddess will remain in her joyful form as she awaits the male god of the temple, her mythological consort [[Montu]], whose son she will bear.{{sfn|Darnell|1995|pp=54, 62, 91–94}}

===Sexuality, beauty, and love===

Hathor's joyful, ecstatic side indicates her feminine, procreative power. In some creation myths she helped produce the world itself.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|p=138}} [[Atum]], a creator god who contained all things within himself, was said to have produced his children [[Shu (Egyptian god)|Shu]] and [[Tefnut]], and thus begun the process of creation, by masturbating. The hand he used for this act, the Hand of Atum, represented the female aspect of himself and could be personified by Hathor, Nebethetepet, or another goddess, [[Iusaaset]].{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=99, 141, 156}} In a late [[creation myth]] from the [[Ptolemaic Period]] (332–30 BC), the god [[Khonsu]] is put in a central role, and Hathor is the goddess with whom Khonsu mates to enable creation.{{sfn|Cruz-Uribe|1994|pp=185, 187–188}}

Hathor could be the consort of many male gods, of whom Ra was only the most prominent. [[Mut]] was the usual consort of [[Amun]], the preeminent deity during the New Kingdom who was often linked with Ra. But Mut was rarely portrayed alongside Amun in contexts related to sex or fertility, and in those circumstances, Hathor or [[Isis]] stood at his side instead.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=155}} In the late periods of Egyptian history, the form of Hathor from Dendera and the form of Horus from Edfu were considered husband and wife{{sfn|Lesko|1999|p=127}} and in different versions of the myth of the Distant Goddess, Hathor-Raettawy was the consort of Montu{{sfn|Darnell|1995|pp=47, 69}} and Hathor-Tefnut the consort of Shu.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|p=197}}

Hathor's sexual side was seen in some [[Ancient Egyptian literature#Narrative tales and stories|short stories]]. In a cryptic fragment of a Middle Kingdom story, known as "The Tale of the Herdsman", a herdsman encounters a hairy, animal-like goddess in a marsh and reacts with terror. On another day he encounters her as a nude, alluring woman. Most [[Egyptologists]] who study this story think this woman is Hathor or a goddess like her, one who can be wild and dangerous or benign and erotic. Thomas Schneider interprets the text as implying that between his two encounters with the goddess the herdsman has done something to pacify her.{{sfn|Schneider|2007|pp=315–317}} In "[[The Contendings of Horus and Set]]", a New Kingdom short story about the [[Osiris myth#Conflict of Horus and Set|dispute between those two gods]], Ra is upset after being insulted by another god, [[Babi (mythology)|Babi]], and lies on his back alone. After some time, Hathor exposes her genitals to Ra, making him laugh and get up again to perform his duties as ruler of the gods. Life and order were thought to be dependent on Ra's activity, and the story implies that Hathor averted the disastrous consequences of his idleness. Her act may have lifted Ra's spirits partly because it sexually aroused him, although why he laughed is not fully understood.{{sfn|Morris|2007|pp=198–199, 201, 207}}

Hathor was praised for her beautiful hair. Egyptian literature contains allusions to a myth not clearly described in any surviving texts, in which Hathor lost a lock of hair that represented her sexual allure. One text compares this loss with Horus's loss of his [[Eye of Horus|divine Eye]] and [[Set (mythology)|Set]]'s loss of his testicles during the struggle between the two gods, implying that the loss of Hathor's lock was as catastrophic for her as the maiming of Horus and Set was for them.{{sfn|Selden|1998|pp=346–348}}

Hathor was called "mistress of love", as an extension of her sexual aspect. In the series of love poems from Papyrus Chester Beatty{{nbsp}}I, from the [[Twentieth Dynasty]] (c. 1189–1077 BC), men and women ask Hathor to bring their lovers to them: "I prayed to her [Hathor] and she heard my prayer. She destined my mistress [loved one] for me. And she came of her own free will to see me."{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=40–41}}

===Motherhood and queenship===
[[File:Hatshepsut temple5.JPG|thumb|alt=Relief of a cow with a disk between her horns. A human wearing a crown drinks from her udders.|Hathor as a cow suckling [[Hatshepsut]], a female pharaoh, at Hatshepsut's [[temple of Hatshepsut|temple at Deir el-Bahari]] ([[15th century BC]]).]]
Hathor was considered the mother of various child deities. As suggested by her name, she was often thought of as both Horus's mother and consort.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=82–83}} As both the king's wife and his heir's mother, Hathor was the divine counterpart of human queens.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|p=130}}

Isis and Osiris were considered Horus's parents in the [[Osiris myth]] as far back as the late Old Kingdom, but the relationship between Horus and Hathor may be older still. If so, Horus only came to be linked with Isis and Osiris as the Osiris myth emerged during the Old Kingdom.{{sfn|Hart|2005|p=62}} Even after Isis was firmly established as Horus's mother, Hathor continued to appear in this role, especially when nursing the pharaoh. Images of the Hathor-cow with a child in a papyrus thicket represented his mythological upbringing in a secluded marsh. Goddesses' milk was a sign of divinity and royal status. Thus, images in which Hathor nurses the pharaoh represent his right to rule.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=175–176}} Hathor's relationship with Horus gave a healing aspect to her character, as she was said to have restored Horus's missing eye or eyes after Set attacked him.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=140}} In the version of this episode in "The Contendings of Horus and Set", Hathor finds Horus with his eyes torn out and heals the wounds with gazelle's milk.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|pp=131–132}}

Beginning in the [[Late Period of Egypt|Late Period]] (664–323 BC), temples focused on the worship of a divine family: an adult male deity, his wife, and their immature son. Satellite buildings, known as [[mammisis]], were built in celebration of the birth of the local child deity. The child god represented the cyclical renewal of the cosmos and an archetypal heir to the kingship.{{sfn|Meeks|Favard-Meeks|1996|pp=183–184}} Hathor was the mother in many of these local [[divine triad]]s. At Dendera, the mature Horus of Edfu was the father and Hathor the mother, while their child was [[Ihy]], a god whose name meant "sistrum-player" and who personified the jubilation associated with the instrument.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=132–133}} At [[Kom Ombo]], Hathor's local form, Tasenetnofret, was mother to Horus's son Panebtawy.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=123, 168}} Other children of Hathor included a minor deity from the town of [[Hu, Egypt|Hu]], named Neferhotep,{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=132–133}} and several child forms of Horus.{{sfn|Hart|2005|p=71}}

The milky sap of the [[ficus sycomorus|sycamore tree]], which the Egyptians regarded as a symbol of life, became one of her symbols.{{sfn|Roberts|2000|pp=26–27}} The milk was equated with water of the Nile inundation and thus fertility.{{sfn|Richter|2016|pp=179–182}} In the late Ptolemaic and [[Egypt (Roman province)|Roman Periods]], many temples contained a creation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation.{{sfn|McClain|2011|pp=3–6}} The version from Hathor's temple at Dendera emphasizes that she, as a female solar deity, was the first being to emerge from the primordial waters that preceded creation, and her life-giving light and milk nourished all living things.{{sfn|Richter|2016|pp=169–172, 185}}

Hathor's maternal aspects can be compared with those of Isis and Mut, yet there are many contrasts between them. Isis's devotion to her husband and care for their child represented a more socially acceptable form of love than Hathor's uninhibited sexuality,{{sfn|Griffiths|2001|p=189}} and Mut's character was more authoritative than sexual.{{sfn|te Velde|2001|p=455}} The text of the [[1st century AD|1st century CE]] [[Insinger Papyrus]] likens a faithful wife, the mistress of a household, to Mut, while comparing Hathor to a strange woman who tempts a married man.{{sfn|te Velde|2001|p=455}}

===Fate===
Like [[Meskhenet]], another goddess who presided over birth, Hathor was connected with ''[[shai]]'', the Egyptian concept of [[fate]], particularly when she took the form of the Seven Hathors. In two New Kingdom works of fiction, the "[[Tale of Two Brothers]]" and the "[[Tale of the Doomed Prince]]", the Hathors appear at the births of major characters and foretell the manner of their deaths. The Egyptians tended to think of fate as inexorable. Yet in "The Tale of the Doomed Prince", the prince who is its protagonist is able to escape one of the possible violent deaths that the Seven Hathors have foretold for him, and while the end of the story is missing, the surviving portions imply that the prince can escape his fate with the help of the gods.{{sfn|Hoffmeier|2001|pp=507–508}}

===Foreign lands and goods===
[[File:Statue_of_Goddess_Hathor.jpg|thumb|Statue of Goddess Hathor at the British Museum, London, UK.]]
Hathor was connected with trade and foreign lands, possibly because her role as a sky goddess linked her with stars and hence navigation,{{sfn|Hollis|2020|p=53}} and because she was believed to protect ships on the Nile and in the seas beyond Egypt as she protected the barque of Ra in the sky.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=72–74}} The mythological wandering of the Eye goddess in Nubia or Libya gave her a connection with those lands as well.{{sfn|Darnell|1995|pp=93–94}}

Egypt maintained trade relations with the coastal cities of [[Syria (region)|Syria]] and [[Canaan]], particularly [[Byblos]], placing Egyptian religion in contact with the [[ancient Canaanite religion|religions of that region]].{{sfn|Hollis|2009|p=2}} At some point, perhaps as early as the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians began to refer to the patron goddess of Byblos, [[Baalat Gebal]], as a local form of Hathor.{{sfn|Espinel|2002|pp=117–119}} So strong was Hathor's link to Byblos that texts from Dendera say she resided there.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=139}} The Egyptians sometimes equated [[Anat]], an aggressive Canaanite goddess who came to be worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom, with Hathor.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=137}} Some Canaanite artworks depict a nude goddess with a curling wig taken from Hathor's iconography.{{sfn|Cornelius|2004|p=45}} Which goddess these images represent is not known, but the Egyptians adopted her iconography and came to regard her as an independent deity, [[Qetesh]],{{sfn|Cornelius|2004|pp=96–97}} whom they associated with Hathor.{{sfn|Hart|2005|p=132}}

Hathor was closely connected with the [[Sinai Peninsula]],{{sfn|Hart|2005|p=65}} which was not considered part of Egypt proper but was the site of Egyptian mines for copper, [[turquoise]], and [[malachite]] during the Middle and New Kingdoms.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|p=52}} One of Hathor's epithets, "Lady of ''Mefkat''", may have referred specifically to turquoise or to all blue-green minerals. She was also called "Lady of [[Egyptian faience|Faience]]", a blue-green ceramic that Egyptians likened to turquoise.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=49–50}}{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=143}} Hathor was also worshipped at various quarries and mining sites in Egypt's [[Eastern Desert]], such as the [[amethyst]] mines of Wadi el-Hudi, where she was sometimes called "Lady of Amethyst".{{sfn|Espinel|2005|pp=61, 65–66}}

South of Egypt, Hathor's influence was thought to have extended over the [[land of Punt]], which lay along the [[Red Sea]] coast and was a major source for the incense with which Hathor was linked, as well as with Nubia, northwest of Punt.{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=72–74}} The [[autobiography of Harkhuf]], an official in the [[Sixth Dynasty of Egypt|Sixth Dynasty]] (c. 2345–2181 BC), describes his expedition to a land in or near Nubia, from which he brought back great quantities of [[ebony]], panther skins, and incense for the king. The text describes these exotic goods as Hathor's gift to the pharaoh.{{sfn|Hart|2005|p=65}} Egyptian expeditions to mine gold in Nubia introduced her cult to the region during the Middle and New Kingdoms,{{sfn|Yellin|2012|pp=125–128}} and New Kingdom pharaohs built several temples to her in the portions of Nubia that they ruled.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2000|pp=227–230}}

===Afterlife===
[[File:BD Hathor Mistress of the West.jpg|thumb|alt=Painting of a cow whose head protrudes from a hill, in front of which stand papyrus stalks and a pyramidal chapel|Hathor, in bovine form, emerges from a hill representing the [[Theban necropolis]], in a copy of the ''[[Book of the Dead]]'' from the 13th century BC]]
Although the Pyramid Texts, the earliest [[Egyptian funerary texts]], rarely mention her,{{sfn|Hollis|2020|p=48}} Hathor was invoked in private tomb inscriptions from the same era, and in the Middle Kingdom [[Coffin Texts]] and later sources, she is frequently linked with the afterlife.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=251–252}}

Just as she crossed the boundary between Egypt and foreign lands, Hathor passed through the boundary between the living and the [[Duat]], the realm of the dead.{{sfn|Graves-Brown|2010|p=166}} She helped the spirits of deceased humans enter the Duat and was closely linked with tomb sites, where that transition began.{{sfn|Meeks|Favard-Meeks|1996|pp=88, 164}} The [[necropolises]], or clusters of tombs, on the west bank of the Nile were personified as [[Imentet]], the goddess of the west, who was frequently regarded as a manifestation of Hathor.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=145–146}} The [[Theban necropolis]], for example, was often portrayed as a stylized mountain with the cow of Hathor emerging from it.{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=179–180}} Her role as a sky goddess was also linked to the afterlife. Because the sky goddess—either Nut or Hathor—assisted Ra in his daily rebirth, she had an important part in [[ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs]], according to which deceased humans were reborn like the sun god.{{sfn|Vischak|2001|p=82}} Coffins, tombs, and the underworld itself were interpreted as the womb of this goddess, from which the deceased soul would be reborn.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|pp=170–173}}{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=39–40, 110}}

Nut, Hathor, and Imentet could each, in different texts, lead the deceased into a place where they would receive food and drink for eternal sustenance. Thus, Hathor, as Imentet, often appears on tombs, welcoming the deceased person as her child into a blissful afterlife.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|pp=152–154, 170–173}} In New Kingdom funerary texts and artwork, the afterlife was often illustrated as a pleasant, fertile garden, over which Hathor sometimes presided.{{sfn|Billing|2004|pp=42–43}} The welcoming afterlife goddess was often portrayed as a goddess in the form of a tree, giving water to the deceased. Nut most commonly filled this role, but the tree goddess was sometimes called Hathor instead.{{sfn|Billing|2004|pp=37–38}}

The afterlife also had a sexual aspect. In the Osiris myth, the murdered god [[Osiris]] was resurrected when he copulated with Isis and conceived Horus. In solar ideology, Ra's union with the sky goddess allowed his own rebirth. Sex therefore enabled the rebirth of the deceased, and goddesses like Isis and Hathor served to rouse the deceased to new life. But they merely stimulated the male deities' regenerative powers, rather than playing the central role.{{sfn|Cooney|2010|pp=227–229}}

Ancient Egyptians prefixed the names of the deceased with Osiris's name to connect them with his [[resurrection]]. For example, a woman named [[Henutmehyt]] would be dubbed "Osiris-Henutmehyt". Over time they increasingly associated the deceased with both male and female divine powers.{{sfn|Cooney|2010|pp=227–229, 235–236}} As early as the late Old Kingdom, women were sometimes said to join the worshippers of Hathor in the afterlife, just as men joined the following of Osiris. In the [[Third Intermediate Period of Egypt|Third Intermediate Period]] (c. 1070–664 BC), Egyptians began to add Hathor's name to that of deceased women in place of that of Osiris. In some cases, women were called "Osiris-Hathor", indicating that they benefited from the revivifying power of both deities. In these late periods, Hathor was sometimes said to rule the afterlife as Osiris did.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=251–254}}