Seshat ( egy, sš3t, under various spellings) was the ancient Egyptian

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...

of writing, wisdom, and knowledge. She was seen as a

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

and

record keeper An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consis ...

; her name means "female scribe". She is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building,

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, and

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

Origins

Seshat is attested from the Second Dynasty, where she assists King

Khasekhemwy Khasekhemwy (ca. 2690 BC; ', also rendered ''Kha-sekhemui'') was the last Pharaoh of the Second Dynasty of Egypt. Little is known about him, other than that he led several significant military campaigns and built the mudbrick fort known as Shune ...

with the " stretching the cord" ritual.

Roles

As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh in both of these practises. Seshat assisted the pharaoh in the "stretching the cord" ritual. This ritual is related to laying out the foundations of temples and other important structures in order to determine and assure the sacred alignments and the precision of the dimensions. She was also the "mistress of builders", and laid the plans for the construction and expansion of sacred sites such as temples. Her skills were necessary for surveying the land, to re-establish boundary-lines after the annual floods. The priestess who officiated at these functions in her name also oversaw the staff of others who performed similar duties and were trained in mathematics and the related store of knowledge. She also was responsible for recording the speeches the pharaoh made during the crowning-ceremony and approving the inventory of foreign captives and goods gained in military campaigns. During the

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, she was involved in the

Sed festival The Sed festival (''ḥb-sd'', conventional pronunciation ; also known as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail) was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh. The name is taken from the name of an Egyptian wolf god, ...

held by the pharaohs, who could celebrate thirty years of reign, recording the regnal years of the king and his jubilees on leaves of the ''ished'' or persea tree. It was she who recorded, by notching her palm, the time allotted to the pharaoh for his stay on earth. "Mistress of the House of Books" is another title for Seshat, being the deity whose priests oversaw the library in which scrolls of the most important knowledge were assembled and spells were preserved. One prince of the Fourth Dynasty, Wep-em-nefret, is noted as the ''Overseer of the Royal Scribes, Priest of Seshat'' on a slab stela. Heliopolis was the location of her principal sanctuary. Seshat also appeared in funerary contexts, where, along with Nephthys, she restores the limbs of the deceased. Seshat was closely associated with Thoth (''Djehuty'' in ancient Egyptian), the reckoner of time and god of writing who was also venerated as a god of wisdom, with whom he shared some overlapping functions. She was variously considered to be the sister, wife, or daughter of Thoth. Seshat is the inventor of writing and Thoth taught writing to man.

Iconography

In ancient Egyptian art, she was depicted as a woman with a seven-pointed emblem above her head. It is unclear what this emblem represents. This emblem is the origin of an alternate name for Seshat, Sefkhet-Abwy, which means "seven-horned". Usually, she is shown holding a palm stem, bearing notches to denote the recording of the passage of time, especially for keeping track of the allotment of time for the life of the pharaoh. She was also depicted holding other tools and, often, holding the knotted cords that were stretched to survey land and structures. She is frequently shown dressed in a cheetah- or

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

- hide, a symbol of funerary priests. If not shown with the hide over a dress, the pattern of the dress is that of the spotted feline. The pattern on the natural hide was thought to represent the

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s, being a symbol of eternity, and to be associated with the night sky.

Emblem

The Seshat emblem is a hieroglyph representing the goddess Seshat in ancient Egypt. As the emblem symbolizes this deity, it sits atop her head. The emblem was a long stem with a seven-petal flower on top and surmounted by a pair of horns; the archaic form had seven petals (the vertical shaft as 8), (as a vertical, with two crossed lines-(4), as a 'star', and one horizontal, giving 7+ the 1-vertical shaft), and surmounted by two enclosing sickle-shaped signs, two falcon-feathers on top. Alan Gardiner identified the emblem as a "conventionalized flower (?) surmounted by horns." Alternatively, the symbol may represent a device similar to a groma. The famous 24th century BC Palermo Stone has multiple uses of ''Seshat's emblem''. It occurs on the obverse of the ''Palermo Piece'' (at Palermo Museum), 1 of the 2 large pieces of the 7—piece Palermo Stone. It is used on the obverse, Row III (of VI rows), and is used twice in King Year Record 34, and 40 of King

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. It is also used elsewhere on the stone for ''God Seshu'', the male counterpart of Seshat (Seshait or Sesha-t).*Budge, 1920, (1978). pp. 697b-698a. F31:X1.R21 ! U1-S39-Z9:Z9 ! I9:D47:X1-S39-Z9:Z9 !! ---- The reading is approximately: ''"YEAR: To create (a) Statue for Seshait, Statue for Mafdet."'' (The King Year 34 ''register'' has the clearer of the two styles of Seshat Emblem, with larger spacing between the two vertical feathers. Note: the Gardiner font reads left-to-right; the Palermo Stone is written opposite: right-to-left. A large renpet (hieroglyph) for YEAR, precedes the register (forms its starting border).)

Worship

Seshat barely appears outside of her official role as the recorder of construction and written projects and did not have a temple or cult dedicated to her.

Gallery

Image:Hatshepsut and Seshat.jpg, Hatshepsut and Seshat, from the

Red Chapel The Red Chapel of Hatshepsut or the Chapelle rouge was a religious shrine in Ancient Egypt. The chapel was originally constructed as a barque shrine during the reign of Hatshepsut. She was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty from ap ...

File:Goddess Seshat, ca. 1919-1875 B.C.E., 52.129.jpg, Goddess Seshat, ca. 1919-1875 B.C.E., 52.129

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

File:Luxor temple 16.jpg, Seshat carved on the back of the throne of the seated statue of Rameses II in the Amun temple at Luxor. It dates from around 1250 BCE. File:Seshat in Luxor.jpg, Seshat. Same carving, full length File:Seshat. Karnak Temple - Luxor.jpg, Seshat, at the Karnak Temple Complex

Origins

Roles

Iconography

Emblem

Worship

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading