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Egyptian Goddesses - N
Neb-Ti
The ruling goddesses of the north (Uadgit) and south (Nekhebet, the protector
of childbirth).
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Neith
(Net, Neit) A primordial Goddess, self-created and self-creating; in some
tales She is the Tracer of the Nile's course and the foundress of the
city of Sais, established when She brought the Nile to the sea. A warrior
Goddess who was also skilled in domestic arts. It was she who, as Patroness
of the Loom, wove the world into being.
The oldest of the Egyptian Deities, an ancient goddess of war, worshiped
in the Delta; revered as a goddess of wisdom, she was identified with
Athena by the Greeks. In later traditions, the sister of Isis, Nephthys,
and Selket, and protectress of Duamutef, the god of the stomach of the
deceased. She was mother of the crocodile god Sobek.
Neith was a goddess of the hunt. She may have also been a war goddess.
Her worship dates from pre dynastic history. In early times she was called
'mother of the gods' and 'Great Goddess'. She was considered the guardian
of men and gods, the acacia is her sacred tree.
Later, Neith was seen as a protector of the dead, she is often seen standing
with Nephthys at the head of coffins. Or assisting Isis, Nephthys, and
Serqet to guard the Canopic jars. As 'Opener of the Ways', she was a guide
in the underworld, a female Anubis. In the Eighteenth Dynasty she took
on the attributes of Hathor, as a protector of women. As a creative deity
she was said to be the wife of Khnum at Elephantine. She was appealed
to for her wisdom as an arbitrator during the great quarrel of Horus and
Seth.
Neith assumed the role of state deity during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
when the kings of Sais repeled the invading Assyrians and reunited Egypt.
This period lasted for about a century and a half and the tendency in
art and religion was to try to regain the glories of the past. This was
a suitable time for the worship of an ancient goddess. The pharaoh Nectanebo
II, of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, claimed her as his Mother.
Neith was depicted as a woman wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt, holding
a bow and crossed arrows. The symbol adopted by her cult was a shield
and crossed arrows. Occasionally she was represented as the great cow,
the mother of Ra.
Nekhebet
The protectress of women in childbirth, this Egyptian vulture goddess
suckled the royal children and the Pharaoh. She is the protectress of
ancient Upper Egypt, the goddess of death & rebirth. Egypt's oldest
oracle was the shrine of Nekhebet, and the Egyptian word for 'mother'
was the sign of the vulture. She was the tutelary goddess of upper Egypt,
regarded as a protectress and ministrant to childbirth.
Nepthys
(Nebet-het, Nebt-het) Nephthys was the patroness of the dead, funerals,
the house, and women. She was depicted as a woman with the hieroglyphs
of her name (a basket and a house on top of each other) on her head, though
she was also sometimes given wings or the form of a bird (the kite), making
her a solar deity, as well as a deity of the dead. She is a very ancient
goddess, first found in Old Kingdom writings. She is often shown riding
in the funeral boat accompanying the dead into the Blessed Land. She is
also revered as the head of the household of the gods, and her protection
is given to the head woman of any house. In fact her name is given as
a title to such women (literally translated it means "head of the
house"). She also stands at the head of the bed to comfort women
in childbirth while Bes dances. She was worshipped widely throughout all
of Egypt, though she had no formal temple or cult.
Nephthys was known as: Lady of the Body (of the Gods), Dweller within
Senu, Lady of Heaven, Mistress of the Gods, Great Goddess, Lady of Life,
Nephthys, Sister of Isis, Mistress of the House... Her Egyptian name (Neb-hut,
Nebthet) means "Mistress of the House"... ...but by the word
"house" we must understand that portion of the sky which was
supposed to form the abode of the Sun-god Horus; in fact "het"
in the name of Nebt-het is used in exactly the same sense as "het"
in the name "Het-Hert," or Hathor, i.e., the "House of
Horus."
Isis, Osiris, Set, Nepthys and Horus the Elder were the five siblings
of the sky goddess Nut and the earth god Geb . They were brothers and
sisters, but the relationship between Isis and Osiris was one of pure
love, the divine essence of love that existed even before their birth.
There was no love between Seth and Nepthys. Nephthys conceived no children
with her husband Set. Her son, Anubis, was conceived from a union with
Osiris. It is said that she tricked Osiris into this union by making him
drunk, or by disguising herself as Isis. Fearing Seth's anger, Nephthys
hides the infant in the Delta marshes shortly after his birth. Seth murders
Osiris, cutting him into pieces and scattering the parts, and Nephthys
flees in fear. Despite
being the wife of Set, she was seen as a loyal sister to her other siblings,
helping Isis to gather Osiris' scattered limbs, and helped her revive
the dead god. Nephthys tells her sister about the infant Anubis. During
the search for Osiris, Isis finds Anubis and adopts him. After finding
the body of Osiris, she helps Isis embalm him. The two sisters turn into
birds and fly about mourning over the dead body. She is often rendered
on the head of coffins, as Isis is rendered at the foot, with long wings
spread to protect the deceased. She thus became associated with the dead,
becoming a friend of the deceased. She offered guidance to the newly dead,
and comfort to the family of the one who died.
As comforter, she stood at the birth-bed to offer comfort and help with
the birth of new born children - Isis was seen as the midwife. The two
sisters were often together, only being able to be told apart by the hieroglyph
on their heads. Also, like her sister, she was thought to have great magical
powers - she was the Mighty One of Words of Power. Nepthys was also the
guardian of Hapi, the protector of the lungs of the deceased.
Nepthys is closely aligned with Isis as her dark twin. Nepthys is the
bringer of dreams, & associated with the outer edges of territory,
night & the unknown. Nepthys personifies the Yin force of an Isis/Nepthys
duality. She possesses tremendous magick powers like her sister Isis,
whom she helped to find the scattered parts of her brother Osiris' body.
Yet, originally, where Isis was visible, birth, growth, development and
vigour, Nephthys was invisible, death, decay, diminution and immobility.
She was the darkness to Isis' light. Isis was the day, her twin sister
the night. The goddesses were personified by two priestesses who were
virgins and who were ceremonially pure; the hair of their limbs was to
be shaved off, they were to wear ram's wool garlands upon their heads,
and to hold tambourines in their hands; on the arm of one of them was
to be a fillet inscribed "To Isis," and on the arm of the other
was to be a fillet inscribed "To Nephthys." On five days during
the month of December these women took their places in the temple of Abydos
and, assisted by the Kher Heb, or precentor, they sang a series of groups
of verses to the god.
She is given the title "Friend of the Dead" and is seen as a
personification of darkness (in a non-evil sense) as Isis is a goddess
of light. Her primary function is that of mortuary protectress, in which
role she serves as guide to the spirits of deceased Pharoahs.
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Nut
Nut is the incredibly ancient sky-goddess. Her body is arched over the
world forming the vault of the heavens, protecting the Earth beneath.
She is the daughter of Shu and Tefnut, and the mother of Osiris, Isis,
Set, and Nephthys. Nut protects the world from the darkness outside it
and all the demonic creatures that dwell in that darkness. She is the
Mother Goddess personifying the Night Sky, the patron of the sky and the
firmament. Nut was the eternally permanent sky arched over the earth,
with her children, the sun, moon and stars, moving through her. It was
she who poured the nourishing rain down from the heavens with her water
jar and she who offered water and food to the souls of the departed. Her
image was often pictured inside the tops and bottoms of coffins so that
the dead could be embraced by her for eternity.
She was depicted as a dark, star-covered naked woman, holding her nude
body up in an arch, facing downwards. Her arms and legs were imagined
to be the pillars of the sky, and hands and feet were thought to touch
the four cardinal points at the horizon. Far underneath her lay the earth
god, Geb, sometimes ithphallyic, looking up at his sister-wife. She was
also described as a cow goddess, taking on some of the attributes of Hathor.
Geb was described as the "Bull of Nut" in the Pyramid Texts.
As a great, solar cow, she was thought to have carried Ra up into the
heavens on her back, after he retired from his rule on the earth. At other
times, she was just portrait as a woman wearing her sign - the particular
design of an Egyptian pot on her head. In one myth Nut gives birth to
the Sun-god daily and he passes over her body until he reaches her mouth
at sunset. He then passed into her mouth and through her body and is reborn
the next morning. Another myth described the sun as sailing up her legs
and back in the Atet (Matet) boat until noon, when he entered the Sektet
boat and continued his travels until sunset. As a goddess who gave birth
to the son each day, she became connected with the underworld, resurrection
and the tomb. She was seen as a friend to the dead, as a mother-like protector
to those who journeyed through the land of the dead. She was often painted
on the inside lid of the sarcophagus, protecting the dead until he or
she, like Ra, could be reborn in their new life.
She was the personification of the sky (originally she was a goddess of
just the sky at day, where the clouds formed) and the heavens. She was
thought to be the mother of five children on the five extra days of the
Egyptian calendar, won by Thoth - Osiris who was born on the first day,
Horus the Elder on the second, Set on the third, Isis on the fourth, and
Nephthys the last born on the fifth day. The days on which these deities
were born were known as the 'five epagomenal days of the year', and they
were celebrated all over Egypt:
1. Osiris - an unlucky day
2. Horus the Elder - neither lucky nor unlucky
3. Seth - an unlucky day
4. Isis - a lucky day, "A Beautiful Festival of Heaven and Earth."
5. Nephthys - an unlucky day
In the Book of the Dead, Nut was seen as a mother-figure to the sun god.
In some cases she took the form of a great cow who's eyes represented
the sun and the moon. She was the the goddess of moisture, in the Heliopolitan
genealogy. Nut was the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the
ordered cosmos in this world. Her fingers and toes were believed to touch
the four cardinal points or directions. Nut was also a goddess of the
dead, and the pharaoh was said to enter her body after death, from which
he would later be resurrected. Her principal sanctuary was at Heliopolis.
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