From my diary : Daughter's Of The Sun

Several Egyptian goddesses are the daughters of Re' the Sun god:

 

 Sakhmet

Bastet
Tefenet
  Hathor 

Maat

Sakhmet

As incarnations of solar radiance they become the necessary implements for the permanence and stabilityof the creation.Whatever their name they appear as the of the sun god.Their mission in the cosmic organization is double and conflicting,they have stay close to the sun but constantly move away from it at the same time.They can not leave the sun god because they have to feed him and regenerate every day.The daughters of Re' must spread the light on earth.

They very ofen have two totally contradictory facets they are at the same time destructive and beneficient, formidable and peaceful.Their aggressive aspect is due to their permament fight against the forces and powers of chaos.Their peaceful  aspect suggests their fundamental part in the  permanence of creation.

                                                                    

                                           

Goddess Bastet

The  cat goddess  Bastet, daughter of the sun
and eye of the star.She incarnates
the peaceful features of dangerous
deities such as the lioness 
Sakhmet.

Goddess Bastet

The  cat goddess  Bastet is protector of households and births.She appears under different iconographies as a mother cat feeding her kittens, a cat sitting up or a woman  with a cat's head.

  

Bastet

 

The hundreds of statuettes,amulets or cat mummies made in her honor and found in sanctuaries.Her main place of worship is in Delta in the Tell Basta,a name that the Greeks turned into Bubastis.

 

SAKHMET

The goddess Sakhmet incarnating the solar eye and dangerous forces whose function is to annihilate the enemies of the sun.No Egyptian divinity has as many faces as Sakhmet the lioness goddess. She is nicknamed " The Powerfull One ". She appears as an aggresive lioness or as a lioness headed woman.Her character is very ambivalent. She incarnates the destructive force of a malevolent lioness, but once calm and quiet  she becomes a cat and adopts the appearance of the goddess Bastet.Her main town is Memphis where she is venerated with  Ptah the creative god of town and Nefertem the little lotus god.

 

The goddess  Tefenet is the daughters of Re' with her brother Shu she forms the first divine couple.Tefenet personifies the cosmic order,Shu symbolizes life.Tefenet brings heat and Shu gives light. Apart from her cosmic duties Tefenet very often adopts the personality of furious deities such as the lioness Sakhmet.The goddess Tefenet incarnating the order of the cosmos.

 

Goddess Tefenet

HATHOR

            

The goddess Hathor is the daughters of Re' considered to be eye of the sun.In hieroglyphic writing the name Hathor is read "Hut / Hor",the "home of Horus"or the "cosmic dwelling of Horus.

  

Hathor

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nennass1/8212925309/in/set-72157632013662376

Hathor quickly  becomes a universal goddess

a role she  shares with Isis.From the New Kingdom the two goddess  finally merge and adopt each other's iconography.Very often such a deity is displayed on the walls of tombs and temples were a woman wearing a crown with two horns stylized into a lyre enclosing the solar disc.

Which goddess is it ? Hathor or Isis ?

 She is wife of god Horus and sometimes she is his mother. She symbolizes the celestial space in which the solar Horus moves. 

 

 The goddess Hathor has several representation like a woman with two horns surrounding the solar disc  and like a cow or a woman with a cow's head.She is goddess with a several functions:Lady of far land,goddess of joy,misstress of Theban necropolis,lady of sycamore,lady of music,goddess of love,lady of the turquoise ect.Her principal place of worship is Dendera in Upper Egypt.

Maat 

The goddess Maat is the daughters of Re.She is goddess of justice and truth.She personifies universal order and cosmic equilibrium needed at the time of the creation.Her role is to control the regularity of cosmic phenomena and to watch over the proper working of social rules.The goddess Maat has  representation an ostrich feather or a woman wearing an ostrich feather on her head.In every day life for egyptians she is personification of all notions related to justice and truth.

 

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/nennass1/sets/72157632013662376/with/8480430657/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my diary: Egyptian Solar Gods

 

 

 The official Egyptians religion give primacy to the " Solar god's ".The sun god Re may be also called as Re - Harakhty or Re - Atum.

 

 

   

Concept of god   

   

The oldest Egyptians concept of god use a falcon or hawk,he is protector of pharaons.

                                   

                               Falcon god

Who is Falcon God ? 

In the Egyptian mythology many deities are represented as falcons. One of them is god Horus,who is several gods in one.He is a solar god and regins over the sky.    

 

                                             Horus as multiple God

 

 

  He presented under the form of falcon next gods :

 

 

Harakhty,Harmakhis,

Haroeris,Hurun.

  

 

 

After the land  unification under the pharaons of Hiearkonpolis the falcon god of this town becomes the royal god

 

                                                                                  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nennass1/sets/72157632013662376/

Falcon is the protector of the pharaon and main dynastic god who is considered to be the incarnation of god Horus on earth.

 

 

Horus initially  the dominant  falcon god gliding across the distant sky is ever more identified as the son of Osiris

and

Isis

The symbiosis of king and falcon sculpturally introduced in the images of Khafre.The most impresive representations of a tutelary god

Pharaoh chooses a set names on his accession to the thron. 

• The Horus name.It present the pharaoh as the incarnation of the falcon god Horus.
• The Nebti name.It places pharaoh under the protection of the two tutelary goddesses of Egypt Nekhbet the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt and Wadjit the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt.
• The Golden Horus name.Introduced Horus sitting on the sign for gold,nub this name reaffirms the unchangeable divine and sublime nature of the body of Horus.Pharaoh is the living incarnation of the Horus
•  
  
  The Throne name
  He of the sedge and bee,"the sedge being the emblem of the North and the bee that of the South.This is pharaoh's first name which he recives when he is enthroned.It affirms his sovereignty over the two kingdoms that make up the land Upper and Lower Egypt.Pharaoh name is written in cartouche resembling an elongated loop of rope closed by a knot symbolizing  
  Pharaoh's sovereignty
  
  

  

  • The Birth name
  • The name is the name of Son of Re.It is also
  • inscribed in cartouche and confirms that Pharaoh is the son of the sun god and of direct solar origin
  .                     

The gods representations and hieroglyphic forms of their names provide types of informations:

• the main iconographic features by which the deity can be recognized   

• the  character and function of the deity and main places of worship                             

                                 RE / RA

   

   
  
  

             

  

  The local Theban god Amun

The name of the sun god.He was a creative god in Heliopolis.Ra presides over the great Ennead constituted of nine fudamental gods:

Tefenet and Shu,Nut and Geb,Isis and Osiris,Seth and Nephthys,and Horus the elder.God Ra is very important in the Egyptian mythology in the IV th Dynasty the pharaohs add a fifth name to their royal titulary: the Birth name or " Son of Ra".Representation a man and sometimes with a head of a falcon wearing a solar disc on his head.Many myths describe Ra and his daily trips across the sky.Ra is also combined with many anothers deities : Re-Atum,Amun-Re,etc...

 

From my diary : The Source of Isis

 

 Isis is one of the earliest and most important goddess in ancient Egypt. She was regarded as the feminine counterpart to Osiris, a role she probably occupied before the dawn of dynastic Egypt.She is the daughter of Geb the earth and Nut the sky,wife and sister of god Osiris.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nennass1/8441591309/in/set-72157632013662376/ 

 No other Egyptian deity has stood the test of time as well as Isis.Together with Thoth, she taught mankind the secrets of medicine. She was the embalmer and gaurdian of Osiris.                                                                   

Isis is portrayed as a woman with a throne on her head which is a hieroglyphic  sign used to write her name.Over the centuries she has assumed the many feminine goddesses.

Isis carries a many attributes and their iconography belonging to Hathor,Neith,Satis,Sakhmet,Opet,Serket or Renenutet.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nennass1/8442466416/in/set-72157632013662376/ 

 

                  

She is often rendered on the foot of coffins with long wing spread to protect the deceased.

Isis is universal goddess with many roles,who acts in all circumstances in the world of the living as well as in the other world.

 

The egyptian Isis is protector of children and 
woman ,great magician, protector of the mymmy

of the deceased.

She is a mother of sun god Horus.

She was worshipped above all in Philae.As a god's mother, divine adoratrice,lady of the sky, the her cult together with Osiris spread the furthest in the late period.

  

 

Powerful Tutelary

Isis belonged to the Heliopolitan ennead she is guardian and magician.Powerful tutelary " great in magic" and " mother goddess".

In the legend of Osiris,Isis are the main actors in which  concerns Seth murder of Osiris.Isis with her sister Nephthys to look for all the disembered pieces that have been strewn across Egypt. She ask god Anubis to help her to create the Osiris and in  same time she made the first  mummy.

Under the Ptolemaic and Roman dynasties Isis became the universal goddess and her cult spread far beyond Egypt's.