Hathor

Hathor


 * Other Names:**

Athyr, Het-Hert, Hwt-Hert, Het-Heru


 * Meaning of Name:**

“House of Horus.” In hieroglyphs, her name is represented as a large enclosure with a Horus falcon within. From this, we surmise that Hathor was to be seen as the great sky itself, holding Horus within her womb, which was poetically referred to as “house.”


 * Hieroglyphics:**

or


 * Titles:**

“Mistress of Heaven”

“The One Who Shines Like Gold”

“Eye of Ra”

"Mistress of Music"

“Great //Menat//”

“The One Who Fills the Sanctuary with Joy”

//Nebet Mef Kat// ("Mistress of Turquoise")

"She Who Nurses the Dawn"

“The Great Cow Who Protects Her Child”

“Gold of the Gods”

“Lady of the Scarlet-Colored Garment” (she was often pictured in a red dress)

"Lady of the Date Palm"

“Mistress of the Sanctuary of Women”

“Cow of Gold”

“Lady of the House of Jubilation"


 * Family:**

Hathor was thought to be the daughter of Nut, the daughter-wife of Ra, and the mother of Anhur, Khonsu, and Isis. Sometimes she was considered to be the mother-wife of Horus, the wife of Sobek or Thoth, and the mother of Ihy.

Hathor was a very old goddess of Egypt, worshiped as a cow-deity from the earliest times (about 2700 B.C.E.) Her worship by the Egyptians most likely goes back even earlier, however, and she was possibly worshiped by the Scorpion King who ruled during the Protodynastic Period before the dynasties began. In the earliest dynasties, the name of Hathor was a component of all royal Egyptian names. A common title of the king was "Son of Hathor."

Royal ladies often took the title //Hmt ntr Hwt-hrt// (“Priestess of Hathor”) in her honor, and women aspired in the afterlife to be assimilated with Hathor in the same manner that men desired to “become” Osiris. More children were named after this goddess than any other. Yet although she was intrinsically connected to the female of the species, Hathor cannot be considered only a women’s deity. She also had a large and devoted following among men.

Hathor was deeply loved by the general population and truly revered by women, who aspired to embody her multifaceted role as wife, mother, and lover. Hathor’s cult had mainly women as her priests (most Egyptian deities had clerics of the same gender as they.) Many of them were dancers, actors, singers, artisans, musicians, and acrobats who turned their talents into creating rituals that were nothing short of works of art. Music and dance were part of the worship of Hathor like no other deity in Egypt. Belly dancing was considered especially sacred to Hathor. Instruments used in her worship included sistrums, harps, clappers, neys, bells, drums, lute s, tambourines, and cymbals.

Often called “Golden Hathor,” she was the protector of lovers and the patroness of festivals. Hathor's attributes as a mother goddess were exalted - it was she who gave birth to gods, shaped animals and men, and brought greenery into existence. Radiant, Hathor repelled the shadows and illuminated all creatures with her light. The inundation of the Nile happened on her command, and the winds drew near on her orders. Amulets of Hathor, made of bronze, bone, faience, glass, gold, and gemstones, were very popular with both men and women.

Lovemaking and sensual pleasure were considered pleasing to Hathor. The rebirth the Egyptians hoped for after earthly death could not logically be disassociated from the sexuality necessary to begin human life. Unlike later religions that insisted on celibacy for their priests and honored virgin martyrs, the ancient Egyptians felt that to die too young to have enjoyed the sexual union was the worst of fates. There was little virtue attached to being a virgin - indeed, there was no word for "virgin" in the ancient Egyptian language. Egyptian love poems credit Hathor with bringing young couples together. She had a barque called the “Great of Love” in which she sailed to Horus’ temple to celebrate their divine marriage. Their “beauteous embrace” was celebrated yearly with two weeks of feasting and drinking.

Myths say that after his battle with the god Set, Horus was blinded and wandered lost in the desert. The goddess Hathor found him and healed his sight with her cow’s milk. The Egyptians considered cow’s milk to be healing and a key element which helped the dead to be reborn. On the wall of tombs the dead are portrayed drinking from bowls of milk, if not nursing from Hathor herself. Vessels of milk were buried with the dead. "She is the Great Cow who gives birth to Ra, whose tongue is gentle; she has licked Isis with her tongue on the day she was born."

As the “Mistress of the Vagina” Hathor was associated with all aspects of motherhood and was believed to assist women in conception, labor, and childbirth. Wooden phalli, pottery, and metal plaques showing breasts as well as nude female figurines were among the talismans left in Hathor’s temples by those hoping for help with fertility. In at least one of her festivals a model phallus was carried in procession as a reference to this aspect of her nature.

Hathor was thought to “hear the request of all maidens who weep,” listening sympathetically to single women, particularly those who were unhappy. Women were told to make their prayers to Hathor: “Go! Tell your requests to the Cow of Gold, to the Lady of Happiness, to the Mistress of All. May she give us excellent children, happiness, and a good husband.”

Hathor’s priestesses wore patterned red dresses, long red scarves, and beaded //menat// necklaces. The priestesses of Hathor were also oracles and midwives, and people could go to the temples of Hathor to have their dreams interpreted. Her temples contained rooms for the mixing of perfumes and precious oils, treasuries for jewelry, and birthing rooms. In addition to amulets and charms, many ancient mirrors, cosmetic items, perfume containers, and musical instruments have been found decorated with smiling, often nude Hathors on them.

Hathor was described in hymns as the “Lady of the Dance, the Mistress of Songs, whose face shines each day, who knows no sorrow.” The worship of Hathor was so popular that more festivals were dedicated to her than any other Egyptian deity. During her festivals “The great ladies wave their sistrums and beat drums, all those who gather together in the town are drunk with wine and crowned with flowers; the tradespeople of the palace walk joyously about, their heads scented with perfumed oils, and all the children rejoice in honor of the goddess, from the rising to the setting of the sun.”

Known as the "Mistress of Drunkenness," vessels containing wine and beer were often decorated with Hathor’s image (beer brewing in Egypt was traditionally a woman’s profession, as it was an off-shoot of bread making - the basis of Egyptian beer were loaves of specially made bread. ) The statue of Hathor in the Dendrea temple acquired the reputation of being able to heal, speak, and bring prophetic dreams to Hathor’s worshipers. Pilgrims wrote stories of their miraculous healing in prayers, poems, and inscriptions found throughout the temple.

Hathor had so many manifestations that eventually seven of the most important ones were selected and widely worshiped as the “Seven Hathors,” also associated with the seven planets that the ancient Egyptians knew. These Seven Hathors were invoked to act as sort of "fairy godmothers" to children.

Hathor was pictured as a cow (sometimes covered in stars), a lioness, a falcon, a cobra, a goose, a sycamore tree, and as a woman with the ears of a cow and a headdress of horns, holding the sun-disk. She was often shown wearing a red dress and having a red ribbon around her blue-black hair. Hathor was sometimes identified with the female hippopotamus, which the Egyptians considered quite motherly creatures, sometimes an aquatic form of the cow.

On temple walls Hathor was depicted as a cow standing in a barque, surrounded by tall papyrus reeds; the pharaoh was pictured as a calf standing next to her. Images of the pharaoh with Hathor often show him encircled by her sacred //menat// necklace, the means used by Hathor to ensure the ruler’s rebirth after death. A papyrus called the Book of the Heavenly Cow has been found, containing myths and hymns to Hathor. As the motherly cow, Hathor gave the king her divine milk, and protected him as a cow protects her calf.

As the “Mistress of the Necropolis” Hathor was also shown as the head of a cow protruding from a mountainside, watching over the city. The way the goddess came jutting out of the side of the mountain was conceived as a veritable tectonic movement: “The mountain splits open, the stone is broken open, the caverns are broken open for Hathor.”

Egyptian cattle seemed to often be called names relating to Hathor – “Golden One,” “Shining One,” and “Beautiful” are some examples. In her cow form, Hathor was reddish-brown with star-shaped white or black spots, like the “fairy cows” of Ireland. Cows were honored as being good mothers, and were never sacrificed, unlike bulls.

“Shaking the papyrus for Hathor” was a common image in tombs, as a magical way to call the goddess’s attention and protection. The sound of the rustling papyrus plants must have evoked the presence of the goddess moving among the plants, and it has been suggested that mortuary beliefs of the Egyptians, the swampland, which was the favorite habit of Egypt's cattle, was the final stage of the journey the deceased would take before entering //Sehet Aaru//.

Hathor is understood to be the deity who welcomes the worthy dead, offers them refreshments of food and drink, and leads the way into the blessed beyond. One of the desires of the deceased was to be "in the following of Hathor." Hathor was one of the most important goddesses invoked at funerals: "The doors of Heaven open and the deity comes forth / The Golden Goddess has come." In some tombs her image outnumbers those of Osiris and Anubis. "Seek the Cow Mother" is written on the walls of the tombs of early kings.

Because her worship stretches back to Predynastic times, we find Hathor identified with many local goddesses, and it can be said that all goddesses were originally forms of Hathor. Hathor’s image was often used to form the capitals of columns in Egyptian architecture. Unlike other Egyptian gods and goddesses, Hathor was frequently shown full-face in images (highly unusual by Egyptian artistic conventions). The only other deity to ever be pictured this way was the god Bes.

To the ancient Egyptians, direct contact with the face of a powerful deity was dangerous. Again and again we read in prayers to a deity, “May your merciful face be towards me.” People entering the presence of the Egyptian king are sometimes shown holding their hands up before their faces, shielding themselves from his countenance, from the great power which he manifests. Only Hathor, the goddess of love, could be approached without caution and looked upon fully without fear.

Hathor’s hair is dressed in so characteristic a fashion that the style now bears her name: archaeologists have dubbed it the “Hathor hair-do.” This style is utterly distinctive and perhaps surprisingly modern to our eyes. It is not the heavily bejeweled, elaborately braided hair so commonly depicted in other ancient Egyptian imagery. Rather it is simplicity in the extreme: a simple flip, often parted down the middle. Invariably the queen of Egypt was portrayed in sculpture as wearing the long wig characteristic of the goddess, as if to emphasize her role as the physical manifestation of Hathor on earth (this was seen on royal statues for over twenty-five hundred years.) While other ancient Egyptian hairstyles are instantly recognizable even today as solely Egyptian, the Hathor hair-do seems to have set an international style, in particular traveling all over the Middle East. Other goddesses are depicted wearing this style, such as Ishtar, Anat, and Astarte; in fact, it seems to have become **the** goddess hairstyle, favored by all the most fashionable deities.

As the goddess of foreign lands, Hathor became the patroness of trading and the protector of remote mining areas, especially turquoise, copper, and malachite mines. Hathor was called the “Lady of Greenstone and Malachite” and “Lady of Lapis Lazuli” - malachite is a banded light and dark green semi-precious stone that was ground up and mixed with kohl, the familiar Egyptian eye make-up. Lapis lazuli, copper, and turquoise adorned many pieces of ancient Egyptian jewelry. This fits in well with Hathor's role of a goddess of beauty. As the goddess of far-off places, Hathor was also known as the “Lady to the Limit” - the Egyptians believed her to be a goddess who ruled over the known universe!

August 29th (Birthday of Hathor)
 * Feast and Holy Days:**

September 1 (Month of Hathor)

September 17th (Feast of Hathor)

September 21st (Honors to Hathor)

October 4th (Festival of Hathor)

October 21st (Hathor Goes Forth to Her People)

October 29th (Hathor Comes Forth)

November 2nd (Voyage of Hathor)

November 28th (Festival of the Beautiful Reunion of Hathor and Horus)

December 23rd (Feast Day of Hathor)

January 23rd (Festival of Intoxication)

April 1st (Day of Hathor)

May 15th (The Beautiful Feast of the Valley)

May 19th (The Return of Hathor)

June 16th (Feast of Hathor as Sirius)


 * Quotes from t****he Book of the Dead and other sources:**

Hymns of Hathor


 * Egyptian Names Honoring This Deity:**

Sit-Hathor ("Chosen of Hathor")


 * Outside of Egypt:**

The Greeks especially loved Hathor and equated her with their own goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. Hathor was worshiped in Israel in the 11th century B.C.E. at her holy city of Hazor, which the Old Testament claims was destroyed by Joshua (Joshua 11:13, 21.)

The Sinai Tablets show that the Hebrew workers in the mines of Sinai about 1500 B.C.E. worshiped Hathor, whom they identified with the goddess Astarte. Some theories state that the “golden calf” mentioned in the bible was a meant to be a statue of the goddess Hathor (Exodus 32:4-32:6.)

Coptic Christians in Egypt had a hard time letting go of their original gods - one coffin, dated to about 100 C.E. and now in the British Museum, has the inscription: "Hathor, Bait, and Akori - these share one power. Oh, Father of the World, hail God in three forms."

In modern-day Egypt, local women desiring to have children still visit the crypts of Hathor's Temple, almost two millennia after her cult was overthrown.

Egyptian Deities - H