Mehet-Weret

**Mehet-Weret**


 * Other Names:**

Mehet-Uret, Mehetweret, Metheyer, Mehurt


 * Meaning of Name:**

“Great Flood” or “Great Tide”


 * Titles:**

“Lady of Heaven and Earth”

“Oldest of Beings”

“The Great Cow in the Water”


 * Family:**

She was considered to be the mother of Ra.

Mehet-Weret was a goddess of the sky, and represented the waterway in the heavens, sailed upon by both the sun god and the king. The Egyptians called the Milky Way the “Nile in the Sky,” and believed it to flow from the udders of Mehet-Weret. Mehet-Weret was also a goddess of Akhet, the yearly inundation of the Nile.

As a goddess of water, she not only traveled on the water, taking the pharaoh and sun god with her, she was also thought to be able to bring life-giving water to Egypt. Sometimes Mehet-Weret appears in birthing scenes as a herald of imminent birth. The Great Flood is when the waters of the ammonitic sac break to signal that the child will soon emerge.

Mehet-Weret was pictured as a cow lying on a mat of reeds, holding the sun disk between her horns, sometimes wearing a //menat// necklace. Occasionally she was pictured as a woman with a cow’s head and protruding breasts, holding a scepter entwined with a lotus flower. The sound of rustling papyrus plants were believed to announce Mehet-Weret’s approach, as she parted the rushes with her horns. She is mentioned in myths recorded in the Book of the Celestial Cow, found in the tombs of kings.

There was a golden funerary bed found in the tomb of Tutankhamen in the form of Mehet-Weret, the purpose of which was to help the dead king ascend to the heavens, supported by the celestial cow. A popular goddess throughout ancient Egyptian history, Mehet-Weret’s name was still in use even into the Greek period.

Egyptian Deities - M