Mehit or Mehyt was an ancient Egyptian goddess. In the Early Dynastic period she was depicted as a reclining lioness with three bent poles projecting from her back. In that era she appears in numerous early dynastic sealings and ivory artifacts, usually together with a representation of an

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...

ian shrine.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: ''Early Dynastic Egypt'', Routledge; (2001), , p. 290 Her main places of worship were

Hierakonpolis Nekhen ( egy, nḫn, ); in grc, Ἱεράκων πόλις Hierakonpolis ( either: City of the Hawk, or City of the Falcon, a reference to Horus or ''Hierakōn polis'' "Hawk City" in arz, الكوم الأحمر, el-Kōm el-Aḥmar, lit=the ...

and

Thinis Thinis (Greek: Θίνις ''Thinis'', Θίς ''This'' ; Egyptian: Tjenu; cop, Ⲧⲓⲛ; ar, ثينيس) was the capital city of the first dynasties of ancient Egypt. Thinis remains undiscovered but is well attested by ancient writers, includ ...

.Emery, W.B. (1961) ''Archaic Egypt'', Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 125 Mehit was the consort of

Anhur In early Egyptian mythology, Anhur (also spelled Onuris, Onouris, An-Her, Anhuret, Han-Her, Inhert) was a god of war who was worshipped in the Egyptian area of Abydos, and particularly in Thinis. Myths told that he had brought his wife, Mehit, w ...

, or Onuris, a hunter god who was worshipped in Thinis. Various texts allude to a

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

in which Anhur tracks down Mehit in

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

and brings her to Egypt as his wife. This event is the basis for Anhur's name, which means "bringer-back of the distant one". Late sources identify this story with the "Distant Goddess" myth, in which 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, ...

—a solar deity who can take the form of several goddesses—runs away from her father Ra, who sends one of the gods to retrieve her. In the version with Anhur and Mehit, Anhur is syncretized with Shu and Mehit with

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 ...

Tefnut Tefnut ( egy, ; cop, ⲧϥⲏⲛⲉ ) is a deity of moisture, moist air, dew and rain in Ancient Egyptian religion.The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the m ...

, Shu's mythological sister and wife. Because Shu and Tefnut sometimes represented the sun and moon, Mehit could also represent the full moon. Her return to her proper place could thus represent the restoration of the

Eye of Horus The Eye of Horus, ''wedjat'' eye or ''udjat'' eye is a concept and symbol in ancient Egyptian religion that represents well-being, healing, and protection. It derives from the mythical conflict between the god Horus with his rival Set, in wh ...

, a symbol of the moon and of the divine order of the cosmos.Pinch, Geraldine (2004). ''Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt''. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–73, 177

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 qu ...

suggests that the Distant Goddess may have originally been a personification of the wild deserts of Nubia, whose myth was absorbed into a complex of myths surrounding the Eye of Ra.

Toby Wilkinson Toby Alexander Howard Wilkinson, (born 1969) is an English Egyptologist and academic. After studying Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, he was Lady Wallis Budge Research Fellow in Egyptology at Christ's College, Cambridge (1993 to 199 ...

says that in Early Dynastic times she may have been a protector goddess, associated with holy places.

References

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