… while some of the women continue to play and sing others call out to the females of the place and hurl abuse at them, while a certain number dance, and some even stand up and expose their private parts. After proceeding in this fashion all along the river course they reach Bubastis, where they celebrate the feast with abundant sacrifices. More grape wine is consumed at this festival than in all the rest of the year.
The gods and goddesses of the New Kingdom pantheon were perceived as behaving in a remarkably human fashion, falling in love, marrying, quarrelling and indeed displaying many of the foibles and failings of their mortal counterparts. The goddesses therefore reflect, to a limited extent, the role of women within the community, providing us with one of our few opportunities to examine the behaviour of females – albeit mythological – outside the home environment. Within the pantheon there developed a natural hierarchy, and included among the more important of the gods were some impressively powerful goddesses. There was, however, no goddess as powerful as the most mighty of the gods, Osiris, Re and Amen, and initially no specific ‘earth mother’ particularly associated with the mysteries of fertility and creation. Although all the goddesses had originated as local deities capable of independent thought and action, in their state-goddess personae they followed Egyptian convention by marrying neighbouring gods of roughly equal stature and assuming the more passive woman’s role within the marriage. Typically, they bore a male child, thereby becoming associated with the approved feminine traits of fertility, motherhood and domesticity.
Fig. 44 Isis
Isis, perhaps the best known and most forceful of the goddesses, displayed decisive action only when attempting to protect and defend her husband, an admirable activity for a loyal Egyptian wife. Following Seth’s betrayal and dismemberment of Osiris, Isis and her sister Nephthys travelled to the ends of the earth to gather up his scattered remains so that he could eventually became whole again: ‘Rise up, Osiris, for Isis has your arm and Nephthys has your hand.’ Following this remarkable resurrection, Isis conceived a son, hiding in the marshes until she could safely present Horus before the tribunal of the gods where he was acknowledged as heir to his father. Motherhood slowly became an important part of the cult of Isis and, particularly during the Late Period, she was frequently illustrated breastfeeding the baby Horus. These depictions marked the transition of Isis from her relatively restricted role as a member of the Egyptian pantheon to more universal recognition as a mother goddess or earth mother. Isis remained an important goddess beyond the collapse of the Egyptian empire as her cult, carried by visiting sailors, first travelled to Rome and then spread throughout the Roman Empire, attracting mysterious rituals and doctrines. Within Egypt, it was only the gradual spread of Christianity which caused her adherents to dwindle, and her cult was still being practised on the Island of Philae, Upper Egypt, in the fifth century AD. The cult of Isis was always particularly important to women as she was variously perceived as being the patroness of marriage, a protector during childbirth and even the inventor of weaving. The major attraction of her cult in the Roman world, however, seems to have been that worshippers of both sexes were allowed to take an active part in the ceremonies rather than being forced to observe the rituals of the official priests.
The other highly influential Egyptian goddess was Hathor, ‘Lady of the Sycamores’ and mistress of love, music and drunkenness. Hathor was already a well-established goddess at the start of the Old Kingdom, as her prominent role on the Narmer Palette confirms, and she was still being worshipped in various forms during the Saite period some two thousand years later. She enjoyed a widespread popularity among women, and was depicted on many popular day-to-day female items such as mirrors, which were symbolically linked with both fertility and childbirth. Hathor’s role as a nurturer or provider was emphasized by her identification with the cow; she was either depicted as a cow-goddess or as a lady with obviously rounded cow’s ears and horns. Her cult, based at the Upper Egyptian town of Dendera, was served by a large number of female priestesses, often of high birth, who were supervised by relatively few male administrators. Hathor of Dendera was believed to be the wife of the nearby Horus of Edfu, and mother of Harsomtus, while the ‘Seven Hathors’ were connected with Hathor as a goddess of death.
There were, however, clear exceptions to the general rule of the goddess as a loyal wife preoccupied with approved feminine pursuits such as fertility, childbirth, music and love. Neith, the patron deity of the Delta town of Sais, had a slightly androgynous quality. Although she was always depicted as a woman she was linked with the undeniably masculine concerns of war and hunting, and she was often depicted carrying a bow or crossed arrows, so that eventually she became identified with the Greek warrior maiden Athene. Neith may be compared with Sekhmet, the bloodthirsty lion-headed goddess of war and sickness, who was only narrowly thwarted in her mission to destroy all of mankind by the cunning intervention of Re.2 In her less dramatic moments, Sekhmet was the consort of Ptah and the mother of Nefertum at Memphis, and she had a more benevolent counterpart in Bast, the cat-headed goddess of Bubastis.