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Sekhmet had tasted blood, she
lost control. Lusting for more, she
killed everyone she found, wading
through their gory remains.
At nightfall, in a bid to placate
Sekhmet, Ra mixed red ochre into
barley beer so that it looked like
blood. He then poured 7,000 jugs of
the liquid over the land where she
was intent on her killing spree. At
dawn, Sekhmet saw the “blood”
and voraciously lapped it all up.
She became so drunk that she fell
asleep for three days; when she
awoke, her bloodlust had passed,ANCIENT EGYPT AND AFRICA
A sistrum, a sacred rattle in the shape
of an ankh—the symbol of life—was
played to worship Hathor. This sistrum
handle (c. 664–525 bce) depicts the
horned head of the cow goddess.and the remaining humans were
spared. From then on, Hathor—
in her lioness form as Sekhmet—
became associated with an annual
festival that celebrated the survival
of humanity. During the festivities,
people drank beer mixed with
pomegranate juice.A complex goddess
Atum valued the strength of
Hathor’s fiery nature and wanted
her close by him to protect him.
When she returned to him, the
creator god is said to have
welcomed her back as “Beautiful
One,” which was one of the
goddess’s many names.
A highly popular deity and
worshipped throughout Egyptian
society, Hathor was accorded
multiple roles. She was sometimes
worshipped as the wife of Horus
and mother of Ihy, a child god of
music. She was the goddess of
love, beauty, dance, pleasure, and,
most significantly, procreation andEgyptian trinity
Differing creation myths evolved
in ancient Egypt’s major cities—
Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis,
and Thebes. A black stone tablet
from Memphis, ground down
almost to illegibility by its use as
a millstone, names the creator as
Ptah, a limitless almighty divinity.
Called the “giver of life at will,”
he conceived all creation in hisheart and gave it form by
naming it. At Thebes, the
“hidden god” Amun was the
creator god, in the form of the
serpent Kematef. Elsewhere, it
was Atum, “the all,” who was
also Ra, the sun god.
A hymn from the reign of
Ramesses II (1279–1213 bce)
declares that “God is three gods
above all—Amun, Ra, and Ptah.
His nature as Amun is hidden;
he cannot be known. He is Ra in
his features, and Ptah in his
body.” The words suggest that
all three were viewed as aspects
of the same creator god.Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen,
was worshipped in Memphis, one of
Egypt’s great cities. Ptah was said to
have shaped the physical world.motherhood. Women visited her
shrine to pray for children. In
contrast to her lioness aspect,
Hathor was usually represented
as a cow. Her cult, probably rooted
in early fertility rites, was said to
predate the dynastic period. People
also believed that Hathor could help
souls to be reborn in the afterlife. ■I [Amun] created every man
identical with his neighbor;
I did not order them to
commit perversion; it is
their hearts that violated
what I said.
Coffin TextsUS_266-271_Creation_Egypt.indd 271 05/12/17 4:16 pm