The Goddess in Egypt

Like many other ancient civilizations, the earliest form of Egyptian religion revolved around the various forces of nature... and indeed, this was a theme that would be repeated throughout their history. Things such as the Nile river, the Earth, the sky, and even the very air itself were thought to be deities. Later, not surprisingly, their first truly sentient deity appears to have been a Mother Goddess.

In southern Egypt, the Goddess was originally known as Nekhbet and was often represented as a white vulture. This of course reminds us of the paintings found at Catal Hoyuk, and the very early association of the vulture with the process of recycling the body of the deceased, back into nature. Interestingly, in the Egyptian hieroglyphic language , the symbol of the vulture represents both "mother" and "ruler".

In the nothern areas of pre-dynastic Egypt, near the Nile river delta, the Goddess was originally called Wadjet. She was usually represented as a cobra. In addition, both of these primordial Mother Goddess archetypes were accompanied by a lion-headed war-goddess. Wadjet's lion was known as Bast , and Nehkbet's lion was called Sekhmet.

Another similarity with our own religion is that both Wadjet and Nehkbet had Oracles... although they didn't operate in quite the same way. Rather than receiving a direct communication from the Goddess, the Priests or Priestesses simply gave an answer based on their own opinion. Wadjet's Oracle was once located in Per-Wadjet (now Buto), and Nehkbet's Oracle was located in Nekheb (now El Kab).

Around 3200 BCE, northern Egypt was conquered by southern Egypt, and the country became unified. About that same time, the hieroglyphic system of writing was invented, and as a result, our knowledge concerning the events which followed is fairly accurate. Unfortunately, the story is amazingly complex and confusing, due to the period of over 3000 years which it spans, and the vast size of their empire.

When Egypt was unified in 3200 BCE, the capitol was Memphis , which is near modern-day Cairo. At that time, Wadjet and Nehkbet became co-protectors and patrons of the kingdom, and were commonly referred to as the "Two Ladies". No attemp was made to replace Wadjet by Nehkbet, although Sekhmet did replace Bast as Egypt's official war-goddess. Bast was reduced from a lion to an ordinary housecat, and her name changed to Bastet, which is a diminutive form of Bast.

Within Egypt, some major cities had unique pantheons of their own, which would later be merged into the overall cosmology. As early as 2700 BCE, the inhabitants of Hermopolis were known to worship a Mother Goddess called Hathor , who was often depicted as a cow. Her spouse was a deity called Ra , who was a sun-god.

Hathor was related to an even older fertility goddess known as Bat , who was also portrayed as a cow. Both Bat and Hathor were associated with joyful music and dancing, and their clergy often played an instrument called a Sistrum. Hathor was the most popular deity of her time, and was attended by both Priests and Priestesses.

In the city of Thebes , another Mother Goddess archetype called Mut was worshipped. When Thebes became the capitol around 2200 BCE, Mut began to replace Wadjet and Nehkbet, and along with her spouse Amun , eventually came to dominate the national pantheon.

Mut was yet another very ancient deity, who began as a personification of the cosmos, and evolved into a creator and mother. She was perhaps the first goddess to be portrayed as a human, rather than an animal. The Queen acted as her High-Priestess, and her temples were administered exclusively by women.

Due to their location, Egypt did not experience a direct invasion by the Kurgans until sometime between 1800-1600 BCE, when the northern part of the country was seized by what they called the Hyksos , or "foreign rulers". Some historians believe that occurred as a sudden military assault, while others feel it was more of a gradual incursion.

The Hyksos leaders were apparently Canaanite, although their troups were drawn from various other areas of the Middle East. They ruled the Nile Delta for several centuries, and introduced such things as the horse, the chariot, and the composite recurve bow. Once these advanced military devices became available to the southern Egyptians, they used them to attack and drive out the Hyksos, around 1550 BCE.

As might be expected, the Hyksos initially followed Canaanite war-gods such as Baal, but soon adopted the Egyptian deity Set as their mascot. He was regarded as a god of darkness and chaos, and the Hyksos greatly enhanced that reputation, until he came to be regarded as a terrifying force of evil.

Fortunately the rule of the Hyksos was brief, yet it did result in an increased focus on warfare, standing armies, and male deities. However, in Egypt, many of the male deities were not violent war-gods... they generally served more benevolent and ethereal purposes.

There was an interesting period around 1340 BCE, where the Pharaoh Akhenaten attemped to force Egypt to convert to the monotheistic worship of the sun-god Aten... but the attemp failed, and shortly after his death, Egypt returned to their traditional deities.

Around 1250 BCE, the Pharaoh Ramesses II moved the capitol from Thebes to the lower Nile delta. Thebes then entered into a period of decline, and as the Hermopolis pantheon was more popular in the northern part of the country, it began to become dominant. By about 1100 BCE Mut was replaced by Hathor (now depicted as a woman)... and later, Amun was merged with Ra, becoming Amun-Ra.

Some time after this re-arrangement of deities, the goddess Isis began to rise in prominence. Isis was a minor Mother Goddess archetype from northern Egypt, dating to at least 2500 BCE. She was initially regarded as the daughter of Hathor and Amun-Ra, but as time passed she began to take on the qualities of Hathor and replace her. At the same time, Osiris replaced Anubis as the god of the underworld, and Horus replaced Amun-Ra as the god of the sky. These three deities... Isis, Osiris and Horus... were to become the central entities in the last Egyptian pantheon.

Isis came to be known as a goddess of fertility, children, nature, magic, and the primary creation deity. She was depicted as a beautiful woman, at various times with a child, the horns and solar disk of Hathor, the sistrum, or the Ankh. She was served by both Priests and Priestesses, including some who were transgender.

Isis, holding a sistrum
Roman marble statue, circa 150 CE

Unfortunately, the story of the Mother Goddess in Egypt ended in much the same way as the other pre-Christian religions did, throughout the Roman empire... the temples were burned, and their Priests and Priestesses were murdered by Christians, beginning in the fourth century CE.