Anuket

Anuket


 * Other Names:**[[image:anukishjhjj.jpg width="345" height="287" align="right" caption="Anuket offering a menat"]]

Anukis, Anka, Anquet


 * Meaning of Name:**

“Embracing Lady”


 * Hieroglyphics:**




 * Titles:**

“Nourisher of the Fields”

"Goddess of the Cataracts" "Mistress of Nubia"

“She Who Shoots Forth”

"Lady of Heaven"

"Goddess of the Hunt"

“Giver of Life”

"Mistress of the Gods"

//Hnwt ghst// ("Lady of the Gazelles")


 * Family:**

Anuket was the daughter of Ra or Khnum, and the wife of Amun. Satis was sometimes thought to be her mother-sister.

Thought to be a goddess Nubian or Sudanese in origin, Anuket’s name holds reference to the embracing and nourishing of the fields by the Nile river. The two tributaries that fed flood waters to the Nile were thought to be the arms of Anuket. This water goddess was worshiped for her fertility and nurturing nature. Sacred symbols of Anuket were arrows and the cowrie shell.

River-worn pebbles in the shape of pregnant or nursing women have been found in her shrine at Elephantine. Because Anuket was connected with the flood’s fertility, Nile water was the main ingredient in ancient Egyptian love potions. Her breast milk nourished and healed, and she was one of the divine foster mothers of every Egyptian king.

Anuket was described as the “Giver of Life, and of All Power, and of All Health, and of All Joy of the Heart.” She was thought to refresh the deceased with cool water in the Duat. When the Nile started to rise, the Festival of Anuket began. The Egyptian people threw coins, gold, jewelry, and precious gifts into the river in thanks for the life-giving water - thus the riches that the Nile had given the Egyptians were ritually returned to their source.

The pharaoh Amenhotep II so loved Anuket that he extended her festival from three to four days, and offered to her temple beer, bread, oxen, geese, wine, incense, fruit, and “every food and pure thing.” In several parts of Egypt, some species of fish were sacred and could not be eaten. However, during the Festival of Anuket, this taboo was lifted.

Anuket was most often pictured as a woman holding a tall papyrus scepter, bearing her breasts, wearing a crown of feathers and sometimes a menat. Anuket was sometimes pictured as a gazelle, or as a woman with the head of a gazelle. Hymns described her as "the white gazelle gracing the earth, quick and beautiful."

The water goddess’ link to the gazelle was probably because the Egyptians saw these animals often around water. Being sacred to Anuket, gazelles were ritually mummified - cemeteries containing great numbers have been discovered at Dendara and Kom Mer. Anuket was also associated with the Gazelle Crown.


 * Feast and Holy Days:**

July 25th (Welcoming the Rising of the Nile: Feast of Anuket)

Egyptian Deities - A