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| Neith | |||||||
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 The Egyptian goddess Neith, the primary lordess, bearing her war goddess symbols, the crossed arrows and shield or sheath on her head, the ankh, and the was-sceptre. She sometimes wears the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. | |||||||
| Name in hieroglyphs |
or
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| Major cult center | Sais, Esna | ||||||
| Symbol | bow, shield or sheath, arrows, ankh, loom, mummy cloth, click beetle [1] | ||||||
| Parents | None, self-created | ||||||
| Consort | Khnum,[2] Set[a] | ||||||
| Offspring | Sobek,[3] Ra,[4] Apep,[b] Tutu,[5] Serket | ||||||
Neith /ˈniː.ɪθ/ (Koinē Greek: Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic form Ancient Egyptian: nt, also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an ancient Egyptian deity, possibly of Libyan origin.[6][page needed] She was connected with warfare, as indicated by her emblem of two crossed bows,[6][page needed] and with motherhood, as shown by texts that call her the mother of particular deities, such as the sun god Ra and the crocodile god Sobek.[6][page needed][7] As a mother goddess, she was sometimes said to be the creator of the world.[7] She also had a presence in funerary religion, and this aspect of her character grew over time: she became one of the four goddesses who protected the coffin and internal organs of the deceased.[8]
Neith is one of the earliest Egyptian deities to appear in the archaeological record; the earliest signs of her worship date to the Naqada II period (c. 3600–3350 BC).[9][10] Her main cult center was the city of Sais in Lower Egypt, near the western edge of the Nile Delta, and some Egyptologists have suggested that she originated among the Libyan peoples who lived nearby.[11][12] She was the most important goddess in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC) and had a significant shrine at the capital, Memphis. In subsequent eras she lost her preeminence to other goddesses, such as Hathor, but she remained important, particularly during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 BC), when Sais was Egypt's capital. She was worshipped in many temples during the Greek and Roman periods of Egyptian history, most significantly Esna in Upper Egypt, and the Greeks identified her with their goddess Athena.[13]
- ^ The Symbolism and Significance of the Butterfly in Ancient Egypt (PDF).
- ^ Najovits 2003, p. 102.
- ^ Fleming & Lothian 1997, p. 62.
- ^ Lesko 1999, pp. 60–63.
- ^ Wilkinson 2003, p. 183.
- ^ a b c Lesko 1999.
- ^ a b Pinch, Geraldine (2002). Handbook of Egyptian mythology. Handbooks of world mythology. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-242-4.
- ^ Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. pp. 156–157
- ^ Hollis, Susan Tower (2020). Five Egyptian Goddesses: Their Possible Beginnings, Actions, and Relationships in the Third Millennium BCE. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 8–9
- ^ Hendrickx, Stan (1996). "Two Protodynastic Objects in Brussels and the Origin of the Bilobate Cult-Sign of Neith". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (82). p. 39
- ^ Lesko 1999, p. 47.
- ^ Hollis, Susan Tower (2020). Five Egyptian Goddesses: Their Possible Beginnings, Actions, and Relationships in the Third Millennium BCE. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 20
- ^ Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. pp. 158–159
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