Editing Hathor (section)

===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}}