Mehet-Weret or Mehturt ( egy, mḥt-wrt) is an

ancient Egyptian deity Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistory. Deities represented natural f ...

of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood". She was mentioned in the

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranea ...

. In

ancient Egyptian creation myths Ancient Egyptian creation myths are the ancient Egyptian accounts of the creation of the world. The Pyramid Texts, tomb wall decorations, and writings, dating back to the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2200 BCE) have provided the majority of information ...

, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time, and in

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses

Neith Neith ( grc-koi, Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic form egy, nt, likely originally to have been nrt "she is the terrifying one"; Coptic: ⲛⲏⲓⲧ; also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an early ancient Egyptian deity. She was said to be ...

Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...

, and

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic language, Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician language, Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major ancient Egyptian deities, goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughou ...

, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them she could be called the "

Eye of Ra The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun ...

". Mehet-Weret is primarily known as being the "Celestial Cow" or "Cow Goddess" because of her physical characteristics, but she contributes to the world in more ways than that. She is also the Goddess of Water, Creation, and Rebirth; in Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret is one of the main components in the making and survival of life.Seawright, Caroline. "Mehet-Weret, Ancient Egyptian Goddess of Creation." Egyptology & Archaeology Essays, November 16, 2003. http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/mehetweret.html#.VAuIjfldWSo.

Origin

Mehet-Weret was responsible for raising the sun into the sky every day. She produced the light for the crops of those who worshipped her, and she also caused the annual

Nile River The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ri ...

flood that fertilized the crops with water. In Patricia Monaghan's ''The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines'', she describes Mehet-Weret as the Goddess of Creation because she gives birth to the sun every day, creating life for all those who worship her. In Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret was known as the Goddess of Water and Creation, but Geraldine Pinch also introduces the idea that she was a piece of the nighttime sky. She is referenced as being the river of stars known as the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...

, because of her physical traits of being the responsible for the annual flood of the Nile River.

Birthing Ra

Mehet-Weret is described as being the mother of Ra, the ancient Egyptian solar deity. As the Goddess of Creation, she gives birth to the sun every day and is the reason the world isn't in the dark. In her physical description, she is described as having a sun disk between her horns; in typical motherly fashion, she protects her son Ra and keeps him close to her.

Physical description

Mehet-Weret is described as having a woman's body with a cow's head, and as such, is sometimes called the Cow Goddess. A sun disk lies between the horns on her head, which connects her to the creation of the sun.

Sarcophagus of Khonsu

Mehet-Weret is featured on the

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Gre ...

of Khonsu, son of Sennedjem, who was buried in tomb TT1. The hieroglyphics painted on the outside of the sarcophagus are yet another way to protect the deceased; they are used to paint a journey to the afterlife for the pharaoh. Even in hieroglyphics, Mehet-Weret is dressed in many ritual artifacts as a way to keep her goddess-like standing. The picture features a human bowing and adoring her; this was meant as a way to signify her importance as a divine being. In this picture, Mehet-Weret signifies that after his death, the pharaoh will be reborn into the afterlife.

Relationships

Hathor

"Myth of the Heavenly Cow" by Nadine Guilhou tells the story of a separate goddess that is related to Mehet-Weret who is named

. Hathor is seen as more troublesome than Mehet-Weret, because she creates chaos in the human world. The title of the story of the “Myth of the Heavenly Cow” is also known as “The Destruction of Mankind” because Hathor was sent to kill the rebels who acted against the sun god Ra and his plans to rearrange the cosmos. While Hathor is the bloodthirsty warrior cow, focused on the destruction of humankind, Mehet-Weret is responsible for creating some of the most basic needs for humankind: sun and water.

Death and afterlife

The goddess Mehet-Weret was featured in a number of spells in the

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ...

, including spell 17. In this spell she was credited for the birth of Re, also known as the Sun God Ra; she is also the one who protects Re, because it was believed by the ancient people of Egypt that the sun died every day and was reborn by Mehet-Weret. She was responsible for taking him into the underworld, or night because of the darkness, and then bringing him back to the world the next day, almost as if in the afterlife. The people of Egypt believed that Mehet-Weret was the Goddess of Creation and Rebirth, so she was featured in one of the spells to help the humans make their way into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is an important text in the Egyptian culture because it allows the audience to understand the different journeys that the ancient Egyptians believed in to get to the afterlife. Budge, E. A. Wallis. ''The Egyptian Book of the Dead Index'' Accessed September 15, 2014. http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/.

References

{{Ancient Egyptian religion footer Egyptian goddesses Sky and weather goddesses Horned deities Mythological bovines