Fire lion by ~TomGonets on deviantART
Water was their lethal element.
When the Egyptians considered their catastrophic past, they chose fire.
The translucent scarab at the center of this beautiful jewelry once owned by Tutankhamen is vitrified glass created when the sun came down to destroy all of mankind.
Certainly some kind of catastrophic heat fused sand in the Libyan desert into glass..
The myth of Sekhmet that explains this event is found in a New Kingdom (1600 and 1100 BC) royal funerary book called the Book of the Heavenly Cow and it names Sekhmet the lioness as the wrathful form of Hathor who is the eye of Re, as the cause of this terrifying event.
The story begins with Re the self-created one.
Re had ruled gods and humans together for millions of years and now he was becoming old. His bones were stiffening into silver, his flesh was becoming gold and his hair hardening into lapis lazuli. His people too- born from his tears- were changing, once loyal and respectful offering praise and prayer, now the people were rebellious and lazy.
Re knew that they were plotting against him.
He was old and tired.
He wanted to return to the primordial waters of Nun.
But before turning away forever, Re sought advice.
The other gods gave him council. Nun saw how angry Re had become and suggested that pain and fear would stop the people treating Re as if he were ineffectual, Nun suggested that Re set the eye free.
Once a year, two weeks before the new moon in the third month of summer, the statue of Hathor of Dendera was taken out of the temple for the Festival of the Beautiful Union.
The statue was taken down to the river where another statue of Horus was waiting at the quey. Both statues were presented before Maat (possibly as a third statue) before travelling to the Edfu temple for a marriage ceremony.
After fourteen days there, the statue of Hathor was returned to Dendera.
Sekhmet herself is an old goddess, 'she who scratches', a wild lioness, a 'mistress of life'. Sekhmet can cause and cure disease and her priests are recognised as healers. Amongst the first gods people name are the Lady of the Wild places (giving birth to all wild things) and the Lord of the Sun (all seeing and cause of plagues..).
As Pakhet, the lioness, Hathor embodies both characteristics
But, back to the story:
Re gave the order and his gentle daughter, Hathor transformed herself into the wild lioness, Sekhmet. She descended into the desert where she began her lethal game, soon leaving the sand strewn with the dead and stained red with their blood.That would be the end, except Sekhmet, now happy and satisfied becomes the cow Mehet-Waret and Re can no longer tolerate life amongst people.
The lioness temporarily too well fed to eat anymore returned to Re proud of herself and her efficiency.
But when Re looked at what she had done he was sickened and filled with guilt. He realized the magnitude of the power he had unleashed, and one look at Sekhmet made it clear to Re, Sekhmet enjoyed the terror and destruction and would not stop
Re sent his fastest messengers to Yeba, to order that red pigment be sent from there to Heliopolis. At Heliopolis the priests ordered the serving maids to grind hundreds of baskets of barley. The red pigment was mixed with the barley and 7,000 jars of blood-red beer were brewed.
Re and the other gods inspected the beer and were pleased.
Early, before Sekhmet had left to begin her killing again, Re went to the killing-fields and emptied the 7,000 jars of blood-red beer over the fields so that they were flooded to a depth of three palms...
As Sekhmet drew close to the land she saw the beautiful red beer and thought that it was blood, as she drew closer she was mesmerized by the sight of another lion -her reflection-coming up to meet her. Sekhmet and the red lion drank deep of the blood until Sekhmet could hardly stand.
Sekhmet returned to Re and he welcomed her back...
Re climbs onto the cow's back and remains in the sky.
Cybele is shown with lions, likewise Durga. The image above is a plate found in Alexandria on Oxus (now Ai Khanum). It depicts a fire alter and in keeping with the Mesopotamian border stone tradition, three symbols in the sky: Venus, the sun and the moon.
And finally, Inanna.
So why did Venus, Aphrodite lose her lions?
How did she gain the mirror?
This image of Kubaba provides a link.
But here she is shown holding a mirror and a pomegranate.
The picture is a relief of the goddess Kububa, originally located at Herald's wall, Carchemish ; 850-750 BC; Late Hittite style under Aramaean influence. It is now to be found at the museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey. Photograph by JoJan.
She is holding both a a mirror and a pomegranate.
A question I've never found a satisfactory answer to is, why is Persephone linked to pomegranates?
Is it a rattle?
The sound of the sistrum was used to placate the goddess Hathor..
Were pomegranates once dried and turned into rattles?
Just a thought!
I'll have to try it.
Kubaba was the only queen in the Sumerian list of kings.
One last thing.
The mirror symbol represents Venus and copper.
Kubaba was portrayed as a Hittite Goddess (850-750 BC) who used to be a Sumerian queen (the queen- ca. 2500-2330 BC) who was likened likened to Inanna in her most human form.
Inanna was represented in heaven by the planet Venus...as was Aphrodite the Cyprian.
The Hittites were pretty good with copper...
Just to complete the circle...
A copper mirror.
The face on the handle is Hathor..
It dates to 1976-1794 BC (during the Middle Kingdom and the second classical period of Egyptian history) and was made from a copper alloy and has a handle made out of faience- a glazed material made up of crushed quartz. It is now in the Peterie museum, in london.
One final thing.
If the Sumerian omega symbol was indeed used to represent the womb, or birth-hut, and the Goddess of birth then perhaps the omega becomes Hathor's hair...
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