Shesmu

**Shesmu**


 * Other Names:**

Shezmu, Shesmou, Sezmu, Schesmu


 * Meaning of Name:**

His name comes from the Egyptian word for “wine press” (//smw//.)


 * Titles:**

“Overthrower of the Wicked at the Block”

“Fierce of Face”

"Master of the Perfumery"

“Lord of the Blood”

“Headsman of Osiris”

“God of the Wine Press”

“Slaughterer of Souls”


 * Family:**

His mother was sometimes thought to be Sekhmet.

A fearsome Egyptian god of the Duat, the god of precious oils for beauty and embalming, and a god of the wine press. He was thought to be a helper of the justified dead, offering them red wine to drink. Yet he was also seen to be a demon that would tear off the head of a wrongdoer, throwing the head into the wine press to squeeze out the blood as if it was grape juice. The connection between wine and blood, and thus between helper god and punishing demon, came from the red wine that the Egyptians drank. It was this red wine - or blood - that Shesmu offers the pharaoh in the Pyramid Texts and the deceased in their travels through the Duat. Shesmu was thought to butcher and cook the very gods themselves so that the king might absorb their strength.

Not just a god of the Duat, Shesmu was also a god who provided the sacred oils for the embalming process. It was believed that he prevented the putrefaction and decay of the flesh after death with his unguents and special oils. Rooms in his temples were used for the production and storage of oils and perfumes, presided over by Shesmu, “Master of the Perfumery.”

He was also linked with the setting of the sun - because of its red color. Shesmu was depicted as a man, a lion-headed man, a cobra, a ram-headed man, or as a falcon. He always wore one or more cobras, and was armed with knives. Throughout Egyptian history Shesmu was seen as a harsh executioner of the wicked and a great protector of the virtuous - it was said that "He casts wickedness on him that is wicked, and truth upon he who follows truth."


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

The Cannibal Hymn says, “Behold, Shesmu has cut them up for Unas, he has boiled pieces of them in his blazing cauldrons. Unas has eaten their words of power, he has eaten their spirits.”

Egyptian Deities - S