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Hathor
The
goddess Hathor, in time, absorbed in herself the many characteristics of the
local divinities.
This is why she is represented in the most different ways, in her role al lady
of the sanctuaries or protector of one or of another nomos.
Probably hathor was initially the goddess of the sky, but she wasn’t represented
as Nut, but as a cow with a starred fur.
In Ra’s cycle, she appears as the eye in the sun, that assuming the shape of a
lion, of the goddess Sekhmet, destroys men. In her feline aspect she becomes
“the flaming one” who devours the virtues of the fire, the “golden flame”, the
devouring fire of love, the goddess of Joy and of Pleasure.
We find her also represented as the “golden Cow”, Horo’s loved one, she who “Ra
loves”, the 2Golden who is in the ponds full of birds, in the places of her
pleasure”.
Goddess of fecundity, Hathor lives in the trees and she is the “lady of the
Sicomoro in the South”, in Memphis besides being the “Lady of the West”, so the
lady of the dead.
It isn’t known why the Egyptians made her also lady of 2Punt2, of Sinai and of
byblos, but certainly in those areas the goddess must have been identified with
some local divinity.
Hathor’s royal power ambit is great.
The hymns in fact, tell us that his “fame has reached the island in the middle
of the sea (Egeo)”.
To the goddess the “sistro” was consecrated, that accompanied her when she
appeared as a woman with the head of a heifer.
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