Nekhbet


 * Nekhbet**


 * Other Names:**

Nechbet


 * Meaning of Name:**

“She of //Nekhb//” (the main city of her worship.)


 * Hieroglyphics:**




 * Titles:**

“Mother of Mothers”

“Lady of the Valley of the Blessed Dead"

“Pharaoh’s Hen”

“The White Crown”

“Eye of Ra”

"Great White Cow of //Nekhb//"

A daughter of Ra, Nekhbet’s husband was thought to be Hapi.
 * Family:**

Nekhbet was a very ancient goddess of childbirth, and the patron of Upper Egypt. She was the white vulture (representing purification), always seen on the front of the pharaoh’s crown. The pharaoh was known as //Nebty// ("Heir to the Two Ladies"), the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nekhbet and Wadjet. Nekhbet’s predynastic cult reached far back in time, with her image appearing on the Ames Scepter of the very first Egyptian king, Narmer.

Nekhbet was also associated with royal women; the pharaoh’s wife wore the Vulture Headdress to symbolize her role as the great mother of Egypt. The priestesses of Nekhbet were called //muu// (mothers), and wore blue kilts, reed crowns, and robes of vulture feathers. They bared their breasts when escorting a dead man to his tomb, as a magical promise of the nursing Nekhbet’s tender care.

Nekhbet was usually depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread above the royal image, clutching an //ankh// or the Shen Ring in her talons. Nekhbet was described as “she whose wings are open, whose breasts are pendulous.” She was also pictured as a vulture-headed woman wearing the White Crown, Hemhem Crown, or Atef Crown, or as a white cow. In her most ancient form Nekhbet was a wild sky-goddess, with “streaming hair and swollen breasts.”

The sky itself was sometimes thought of as a great vulture. To this vulture-mother the dead king ascends, seeking her breasts to nourish him and take him to new life in the sky. In hymns Nekhbet is described as the mother cow that “suckles the pharaoh and never weans him,” a goddess from whom he is never separated. Birthing rooms were attached to Nekhbet's temples, and fertility figures, given as votive offerings, have been found.

In the Book of the Dead Nekhbet is called “the Father of Fathers, the Mother of Mothers, who hath existed from the Beginning and is Creatrix of the World.” A passage from the Book of Ani said that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by the Vulture Goddess, whose “tearing beak” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again. Egypt’s oldest oracle was the shrine of Nekhbet at Nekhen (modern Al-Kab), the original “necropolis” or city of the dead. Exquisite vulture pendants of Nekhbet have been discovered, such as the ones in the tomb of Tutankhamen.

The shrine of Nekhbet was known as //Per-wer//, or “House of Greatness,” and consisted originally of a light frame construction with an animal skin for a roof. Stylized representations are found as early as 3100 B.C.E. but remain in religious iconography much longer. A copy of it, clad in gold, was placed among the tomb treasures of Tutankhamen. On the roof of Tutankhamen’s //Per-wer// are engraved images of fourteen flying vultures.


 * Outside of Egypt:**

Nekhbet’s worship continued into the Greco-Roman Period – she was equated with the Greek goddess Eileithyia, and Roman emperors add to her temples.


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

Hymn to Nekhbet

Egyptian Deities - N