Mehet-Weret or Mehturt ( egy, mḥt-wrt) is an
ancient Egyptian deity
Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistory. Deities represented natural fo ...
of the sky in
ancient Egyptian religion
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present in, and in control ...
. Her name means "Great Flood".
She was mentioned in the
Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranea ...
. In
ancient Egyptian creation myths
Ancient Egyptian creation myths are the ancient Egyptian accounts of the creation of the world. The Pyramid Texts, tomb wall decorations, and writings, dating back to the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2200 BCE) have provided the majority of information ...
, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time, and in
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses
Neith
Neith ( grc-koi, Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic (Egyptian), Demotic form egy, nt, likely originally to have been nrt "she is the terrifying one"; Coptic language, Coptic: ⲛⲏⲓⲧ; also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an early ancien ...
,
Hathor
Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
, and
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them she could be called the "
Eye of Ra
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, ...
".
Mehet-Weret is primarily known as being the "Celestial Cow" or "Cow Goddess" because of her physical characteristics, but she contributes to the world in more ways than that. She is also the Goddess of Water, Creation, and Rebirth; in Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret is one of the main components in the making and survival of life.
[Seawright, Caroline. "Mehet-Weret, Ancient Egyptian Goddess of Creation." Egyptology & Archaeology Essays, November 16, 2003. http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/mehetweret.html#.VAuIjfldWSo.]
Origin
Mehet-Weret was responsible for raising the sun into the sky every day. She produced the light for the crops of those who worshipped her, and she also caused the annual
Nile River
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...
flood that fertilized the crops with water. In
Patricia Monaghan
Patricia Monaghan (February 15, 1946, – November 11, 2012) was a poet, a writer, a spiritual activist, and an influential figure in the contemporary women's spirituality movement. Monaghan wrote over 20 books on a range of topics including Go ...
's ''The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines'', she describes Mehet-Weret as the Goddess of Creation because she gives birth to the sun every day, creating life for all those who worship her.
In Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret was known as the Goddess of Water and Creation, but
Geraldine Pinch
Geraldine Harris (born 1951), aka Geraldine Harris Pinch, is an author (of both fiction and non-fiction) and Egyptologist. She is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford.
Her works include the Seven Citadels qua ...
also introduces the idea that she was a piece of the nighttime sky. She is referenced as being the river of stars known as the
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...
, because of her physical traits of being the responsible for the annual flood of the Nile River.
Birthing Ra
Mehet-Weret is described as being the mother of
Ra, the ancient Egyptian solar deity. As the Goddess of Creation, she gives birth to the sun every day and is the reason the world isn't in the dark. In her physical description, she is described as having a sun disk between her horns; in typical motherly fashion, she protects her son Ra and keeps him close to her.
Physical description
Mehet-Weret is described as having a woman's body with a cow's head, and as such, is sometimes called the Cow Goddess. A sun disk lies between the horns on her head, which connects her to the creation of the sun.
Sarcophagus of Khonsu
Mehet-Weret is featured on the
sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
of Khonsu, son of
Sennedjem
Sennedjem was an Ancient Egyptian artisan. Sennedjem lived in Set Maat (translated as "The Place of Truth"), contemporary Deir el-Medina, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, during the reigns of Seti I and Ramesses II. Sennedjem had ...
, who was buried in tomb
TT1
The Theban Tomb TT1 is located in Deir el-Medina, part of the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite to Luxor. It is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian official, Sennedjem and his family.
Description
The tomb was foun ...
. The hieroglyphics painted on the outside of the sarcophagus are yet another way to protect the deceased; they are used to paint a journey to the afterlife for the pharaoh. Even in hieroglyphics, Mehet-Weret is dressed in many ritual artifacts as a way to keep her goddess-like standing. The picture features a human bowing and adoring her; this was meant as a way to signify her importance as a divine being. In this picture, Mehet-Weret signifies that after his death, the pharaoh will be reborn into the afterlife.
Relationships
Hathor
"Myth of the Heavenly Cow" by Nadine Guilhou tells the story of a separate goddess that is related to Mehet-Weret who is named
Hathor
Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
. Hathor is seen as more troublesome than Mehet-Weret, because she creates chaos in the human world. The title of the story of the “Myth of the Heavenly Cow” is also known as “The Destruction of Mankind” because Hathor was sent to kill the rebels who acted against the sun god Ra and his plans to rearrange the cosmos. While Hathor is the bloodthirsty warrior cow, focused on the destruction of humankind, Mehet-Weret is responsible for creating some of the most basic needs for humankind: sun and water.
Death and afterlife
The goddess Mehet-Weret was featured in a number of spells in the
Book of the Dead
The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ...
, including spell 17. In this spell she was credited for the birth of Re, also known as the Sun God Ra; she is also the one who protects Re, because it was believed by the ancient people of Egypt that the sun died every day and was reborn by Mehet-Weret. She was responsible for taking him into the underworld, or night because of the darkness, and then bringing him back to the world the next day, almost as if in the afterlife. The people of Egypt believed that Mehet-Weret was the Goddess of Creation and Rebirth, so she was featured in one of the spells to help the humans make their way into the
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
. The Book of the Dead is an important text in the Egyptian culture because it allows the audience to understand the different journeys that the ancient Egyptians believed in to get to the afterlife.
Budge, E. A. Wallis
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
. ''The Egyptian Book of the Dead Index'' Accessed September 15, 2014. http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/.
References
{{Ancient Egyptian religion footer
Egyptian goddesses
Sky and weather goddesses
Horned deities
Mythological bovines