Category Archives: Mut

Is Isis a Wandering Goddess?

This summer, we’ll be celebrating a festival for the Wandering Goddesses, Hathor and Sakhmet. The myth of the Wandering Goddess is one of the most important myths of ancient Egypt. Almost every locality had their own version of the story and their own Wandering Goddess. So, I’m going to repost my Wandering Goddess series—while I work on new posts and attend a Board meeting today. I hope you find it interesting.

Part 1

Isis Wandering in Search of Osiris, by Louis Braquet

If your first reaction is, “Well, heck yeah; She wandered all over looking for the bits of Osiris,” you would not be wrong. But I’m thinking of a different wandering Goddess motif—and not one that is usually associated with Isis.

This mythic theme is also known as the tale of the Distant Goddess, the Wrathful Goddess, or the Returning Goddess. Most people are familiar with it from the Egyptian text known as the Book of the Heavenly Cow.

In that story, humanity has rebelled against Re and He sends Hathor—Who becomes the much-more-violent Sakhmet—to punish them. She enjoys Her work so well that Re is afraid She might wipe out all of humanity. To quell Her berserker rage, beer is colored red. Lioness Sakhmet laps it up like blood, becomes drunk…and is thus “pacified.” Egyptian festivals celebrated Her peaceful return to Her father Re with all-around drunkenness—and not a few hookups on one hand and mystical communions with the Goddess on the other.

But there are many other Goddesses Who share this mythic motif. While the details—to the extent that we have them—are different in the different tales, let’s take a brief look at Who-all-else may have been involved.

In the second most well known of these tales, it is Tefnut Who is our Wandering Goddess. We have a Demotic (late Egyptian) version of the tale and a Greek folktale-ish one. Both are spotty as the papyri are quite damaged and neither has been translated into English, so I’m working from paraphrases.

As our story begins, Tefnut—one of the Fiery Feline Goddesses of the Eye—is angry. She is the Eye of Re, Who, in this version, is Her father. We don’t know why She is angry, but She leaves, heading south, possibly to Nubia or to some other place That Is Not Here.

Without His powerful daughter, Re is vulnerable, so He sends Shu, Tefnut’s husband and brother, and Thoth, Who is particularly clever at pacifying angry Goddesses, to fetch Her back. Eventually, They track Her down. It takes some doing, but with entertaining stories, promises of offerings and festivals, jars of beer, and the wensheb, the symbol of ordered time (and general ma’et-ness), the Fiery Goddess is persuaded to return to Egypt and Her father.

The first place She stops on Her way back into Egypt is the southern Egyptian temple of Isis at Philae. There, She is purified and transforms from Her Burning Lioness form into a lovely woman. On the nearby island of Biggeh, where a tomb of Osiris and an Isis-Osiris temple were located, we find also a temple to Tefnut-Hathor, our angry/joyful Goddess. Perhaps this temple was Her starting point as She traveled from southern Egypt to northern, stopping at temples and towns along the way.

At each stop, a joyous welcome-home-and-restoration-of-order festival of music, dancing, drinking, and feasting ensues. (I am reminded that in cultures throughout the world—often—festivals of license are required in order to usher in a renewed period of order.)

Warning: references to rape in myth upcoming.

“The lance was placed in Geb’s thigh” and we all know what thigh stands in for, right?

Another of Tefnut’s Wandering Goddess myths is darker. We have bits of it from papyri found in the Faiyum and the Delta and on a naos from the 30th dynasty. From these sources, we learn that Geb has raped His mother Tefnut and taken the kingship from His father Shu, recently deceased, though we’re not sure how Shu died. Another version of the myth says Geb “hurt His father Shu as He copulated with His mother Tefnut.” In the next sentence, Tefnut leaves—surely blazing with anger, though what we have says nothing of Her state of mind. During Her absence, the text says, “the lance was placed in His [Geb’s] thigh,” in punishment. Another version has Geb taking up the royal Uraeus of Shu and placing it on His own head, but it burns Him ferociously with a wound that won’t heal. (And we recall that the royal Uraeus is yet another form of the fiery Eye Goddess.)

There are many confusing details in these myths that I won’t go into here. But I do want to again call out the reason why the outraged Goddess leaves, going as far away as She can: She has been raped by Her son.

In a different post, we looked at another raped-Goddess myth, the story of Horit. We don’t hear of Horit leaving for somewhere That Is Not Here. While being identified with Tefnut, She is instead imprisoned—in Sebennytos, the Lower Egyptian capital of the nome where Isis’ temple complex at Isiopolis was located. Eventually, She is freed. So, the Return of the Goddess, in this case, is a return from imprisonment…with the same joyous welcome from the people.

From Upper Egypt, there is the story of Mehyt and Onuris. Onuris, the desert hunter, is the consort of the Lioness Goddess Mehyt. His name means something like “Bringer of the Distant One” and Her name means something like “the Full One.” It may relate to Her identification as the Udjat Eye of Horus, that is the full Eye or the full moon. Mehyt, like all Eye Goddesses, is a protective Goddess, and protects both Osiris and Re. She is also a Fierce Goddess wielding arrows or hoards of demons as needed. As Onuris is involved in a hunt for the Eye of Horus, His heart is said to ache for the Sacred Eye, which certainly seems to make The Eye less of a thing to be procured and more of…well…a Goddess to be desired. Mehyt and Onuris were also honored in Lower Egypt; there was a temple to Them at Sebennytos.

There were many local versions of the Distant Goddess theme. Frequently, the raging Goddess goes by one name and the pacified one by another—like Sakhmet/Hathor in the Heavenly Cow. At Hermopolis, the fiery Goddess is Ai or Tai, while the peaceful one is Nehemant. Demotic inscriptions from Herakleopolis, where these Goddesses were also honored, show evidence of a festival of drunkenness for Her, as it seems there may have been for all our Returning Goddesses.

Inscriptions tell us that “when they are drunk, they will see . . . by means of the vessel” and that people make love before the Goddess and celebrate Her with feasts. From Tebtunis (in the Faiyum), Wenut (Who we met here) is the Raging Goddess and Nehemtua is the Returning One. Nehemant/Nehemtua (and other, similar renderings of Her name) is, predictably, identified with Tefnut, Horit, and Hathor.

Instead of Nubia, Nehemtua has fled to Naunet, the Great Goddess of the Hermopolitan Abyss, and settled Herself within Naunet. Here, we do know why She fled: because Set wants to possess Her, both sexually and as a symbol of His father Geb’s kingdom. So again, the Goddess is fleeing either post-rape or to prevent it. In this tale, it is Thoth and Nephthys Who go to bring the Goddess back.

Upon Her return, Nehemtua is said to have been “initiated” (bsi) to Shu (reinforcing Her connection to Tefnut) in the great (sacred) lake at Hermopolis. Frequently, water is required to cool down the fiery Goddess.

The Great Goddess Mut, Whose name means simply “mother,” is also associated with this theme. She is the Lady of the Isheru,* the crescent-shaped sacred lake in which the Raging Goddess is cooled and, no doubt, purified upon Her return. Part of Her ecstatic festival of return was called the Navigation of Mut and was enacted upon the cooling isheru. Some semi-recently come-to-light texts have made Mut’s festival of drunkenness rather famous. A very fragmentary text about these festivals refers to “the Distant One” and to pacification of the Goddess. We learn of singing, dancing, drinking, feasting, and “sexual bliss” in honor of Mut. Pharaoh Hatshepsut is recorded as having built a “portico of drunkenness” for Her.

Also of note is Mut’s ability to renew Herself; She is both mother and daughter. Her consort is Amun, Who is capable of self-renewal, too, for He bears the epithet Kamutef, Bull of His Mother. And yes, the bull part refers to sex. So we have Mut and Amun (and Re, as possessor of the Eye, is in there somewhere, too) as mother and daughter and son and father to each other. The God Min of Koptos is also called Kamutef—with Isis as His mother/sexual partner. With the Isis-Horus connection so strong, Min eventually takes on the name Horus as well.

And this is by no means the end of the Egyptian Goddesses associated with the myth of the Wandering Goddess, but it is enough to get a picture of its widespread nature. Egyptologists’ explanations for its origins include: the sun’s movement southward from summer to winter; the heliacal disappearance and return of the star Sirius to herald the Inundation; the waning and waxing of the moon during its cycle; the Inundation itself as its waters quench Egyptian fields and cool the red-hot Goddess; the hunter bringing back a tamed animal to his tribe; the maintenance of royal power; the return of ma’et after a period of disorder; and a young woman’s first menstrual period—wherein she leaves as an immature girl, but returns as a sexually mature being, a possibility I find intriguing. Oh, and let’s not forget (in some cases) rape as the reason for the Goddess’ departure and the “sorry, come back home, baby” nature of the persuasions—to put another human face on it. All of these make some sense and there doesn’t have to be just one answer.

As I said in the beginning, we don’t usually connect Isis with this myth. We have no stories left to us in which Isis rages off and has to be persuaded to return, from Nubia or anywhere else. We know of no festivals of drunkenness for Her. And yet, I feel almost certain that there used to be just such a tale. We’ll talk about that next time and I’ll lay out my case.

*As you might guess, Sakhmet and Bast, both feline Deities, were known to have isheru…but Wadjet had one, too. Usually, we think of Her in the form of the Uraeus Goddess, but She also had a lioness form—and is thus among our Fierce and Fiery Felines, too.

The Goddess Werethekau & Isis

“O, Isis, Great of Magic, deliver me from all bad, evil, and typhonic things…” —Ebers Papyrus, 1500 BCE

Werethekau as a winged Cobra Goddess (photo by Mark Williams)

One of Isis’ most powerful epithets is “Great of Magic,” which you may also see translated as Great One of Magic, Great Sorceress, or Great Enchantress. In Egyptian, it is Weret Hekau or Werethekau. (“Wer” is “great” and “et” is the feminine ending. “Hekau” is the plural of “magic,” so you could also translate it as Great of Magics.)

Isis is not the only Goddess Who is called Great of Magic. Indeed, many of the Great Goddesses bear that epithet: Hathor, Sakhmet, Mut, Wadjet, among others. Gods are also Great of Magic, notably Set in the Pyramid Texts.

There is also a Werethekau Who is a Goddess in Her own right, rather than an epithet. As so many Deities were, She was associated with the king, and especially during his coronation. There had been some doubt among Egyptologists about whether Werethekau was indeed a separate Goddess. But recently, Ahmed Mekawy Ouda of Cairo University has been doing a lot of work tracking Her down. He’s gathered references to a priesthood and temples for Her that seem quite clear. More on all that in a moment.

In addition to the Great of Magic Deities, there are objects called Great of Magic, especially objects associated with the king, such as the royal crowns. In the Pyramid Texts, the king goes before a very personified Red Crown:

“The Akhet’s door has been opened, its doorbolts have drawn back. He has come to you, Red Crown; he has come to you, Fiery One; he has come to you, Great One; he has come to you, Great of Magic—clean for you and fearful because of you . . . He has come to you, Great of Magic: he is Horus, encircled by the aegis of his eye, the Great of Magic.”

—Pyramid Texts of Unis, 153

A Lioness-headed Werethekau from Karnak — A lioness-headed Werethekau from Karnak

Some amulets, including a vulture amulet, a cobra amulet, and, as in the example above, the Eye of Horus amulet are also called Great of Magic. So is the adze used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.

With all this great magic going for him or her, the king or queen becomes Great of Magic, too. King Pepi Neferkare is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic” (Pyramid Texts of Pepi, 315). Queen Neith is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic. You are the Great God” (Pyramid Texts of Neith, 225).

I wonder whether there might be some primordial connection between the Great of Magic royal crowns and the Great of Magic royal throne—Who is Iset, the Goddess Throne. There is a votive stele that shows Werethekau and gives Her the epithet Lady of the Throne of the Two Lands. Perhaps we can understand the accouterments of kingship as personified extensions of the Power, Divinity, and Magic of the Living Great Goddesses, which were empowered by Them in order to bestow upon the king his own power, divinity, and magic.

A cobra-headed Werethekau...also from Karnak. Lots of Great of Magics at Karnak, eh? — A cobra-headed Werethekau…also from Karnak. Lots of Great of Magics at Karnak, eh? Or should that be Greats of Magic?

The magic of the crowns is enhanced by the protective uraeus serpents often shown upon them. They’re not just snakes, of course; They’re Goddesses. Most often, the Uraeus Goddesses are Wadjet and Nekhbet or Isis and Nephthys, representing Lower and Upper Egypt. But Werethekau is a Uraeus Goddess, too. The uraei are also known as “Eyes” due to the similarity between the Egyptian word for “eye” (iret) and the word for “the doer” (iret)—because it is the Eyes of the Deities that are the Divine Powers which go out to do things. (Very similar to the active and feminine Shakti power in Hinduism.)

The Pyramid Texts of King Merenre associate the Eyes with the crowns:

“You are the god who controls all the Gods, for the Eye has emerged in your head as the Nile Valley Great-of-Magic Crown, the Eye has emerged in your head as the Delta Great-of-Magic Crown, Horus has followed you and desired you, and you are apparent as the Dual King, in control of all the Gods and Their kas as well.”

—Pyramid Texts of Merenre, 52

The human-headed Cobra Goddess Werethekau nursing Tutankhamum

The Uraeus Goddesses or Eyes are powerful, holy cobras Who emit Light and spit Fire against the enemies of the king and the Deities. Learn more about Isis as Uraeus Goddess here.

When Werethekau is an independent Goddess, She may have the body of a woman and head of a cobra, be in full cobra form, and we even have a few instances of the Goddess in full human form. Among Tutankhamun’s grave goods is a figure of Werethekau with a human head and cobra body nursing a child Tut.

She also has a lioness form. We know of a lionine Isis-Werethekau from the hypostyle hall at Karnak. A number of the Goddesses with a feline form—Sakhmet, Mut, Pakhet—were also known as Great of Magic, so we can understand that powerful magic has not only a protective and nurturing side, but also a fierce and raging one. Which seems about right if you ask me; magic can be very positive and healing or, if used unwisely, a real mess.

Isis-Werethekau from the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. You can read Her name in the hieroglyphs above Her. Click to enlarge.

So far, I haven’t tracked down the oldest reference to Isis as Great of Magic. Since She has always been a Goddess of great magical power, the association is ancient. Perhaps it has always been. Perhaps there’s something to my guess about The Great-of-Magic Throne. Or perhaps Professor Ouda will come to my rescue if I can ever get a copy of his thesis about this.

In Ouda’s article outlining some of the references to Werethekau’s priesthood and temples, several of the extant references to Werethekau also tie-in Isis and Her Divine family.

For instance, on a stele of a chantress of Isis, the chantress is shown playing the sistrum and adoring Isis-Werethekau. The inscription reads, “adoring Werethekau, may They [Isis and Werethekau?] give life and health to the ka of the chantress of Isis, Ta-mut-neferet (Isis the Beautiful Mother).” In fact, on the less-than-a-dozen votive stele we have and on which Werethekau is named or depicted, many of them are stele for people who served Isis in some priestly capacity; they may have also served Osiris and Horus, too.

Ta-mut-neferet holds the hand of a man identified as “the servant of Osiris.” Another stele calls Werethekau “Lady of the Palace” and is dedicated by a chantress of Osiris, Horus, and Isis. A man who was Second God’s Servant of Osiris, God’s Servant of Horus, and God’s Servant of Isis was also God’s Servant of Werethekau, Lady of the Palace.

Iset Werethekau in hieroglyphs...three different ways — Iset Werethekau in hieroglyphs…three different ways

Ouda also notes that Lady of the Palace may be Werethekau’s most common epithet. That is quite interesting in light of the fact that Lady of the Palace (or House or Temple) is the very meaning of Nephthys’ name. (Learn more about that here.) And of course, She, too, is called Great of Magic. Together, Isis and Nephthys are the Two Uraeus Goddesses and the Two Greats of Magic.

So if the question is, “is Werethekau an independent Goddess, a personified object, or an epithet of other Deities?”, the answer is, “yes”. With the beautiful and, to my mind, admirable fluidity of the Egyptian Divine, She is all these things…and most especially, a powerful aspect of Isis, the Great Enchantress.

Isis & Mother’s Day

Every year, about this time, I learn from various and sundry newspapers and journals across the land, that Mother’s Day originated in the worship of the Egyptian Goddess Isis.

The idea seems to be that Mother’s Day developed from the ancient worship of Mother Goddesses. And since Isis is THE most well known of these ancient Goddesses, then Mother’s Day had to be Hers, right?

Sorry. Nope. (You can learn the real story, at least as far as the US is concerned, here.)

But, of course, Isis is a Mother Goddess and many, many people have grown their relationship with Isis in Her motherly aspect. So today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to share with you some lines from a particularly interesting New Kingdom hymn to the Great Goddess.

See if you can guess which Goddess the hymn praises. (When you see […] in the text, it means that the words there could not be read because the source was too damaged.)

“…great of sunlight, Who illumines [the entire land with] Her rays. She is His Eye, Who causes the land to prosper, the glorious eye of Harakhti, the Ruler of What Exists, the Great and Powerful Mistress, life being in Her possession in this Her name […]
[…] in the circuit. The Gods are in […] Great of Might. Her Eye has illumined the horizon. The Ennead, Their hearts are glad because of Her, the Mistress of Their Joy, in this Her name of Heaven.
She is in their hearts, they being glad when She ascends to Her abode, Her temple. She has appeared and has shone as the Woman of Gold […] of best pure silver. All lands give Her their divine property in Her name, and their standards of their places. They rejoice for Her and Her beauty which belongs to Her. Everyone comes into existence through Her when he is created, say the Living in this temple.
There exists no one like Her on earth. She who lives by the might of Her word.
[…] the Great One of the Throne […] She is […] of forms, Great of Property, Mistress of That Which Exists. The papyrus flourishes.”

This Goddess is also called Mistress of the Gods, Queen of Heaven, Great Goddess, Mighty Goddess, Lady of the Two Lands.

While this hymn could well have been used to praise Isis, it wasn’t. It seems that all the Great Goddesses, at one time or another, were called by each other’s epithets and even by each other’s names. Louis Zabkar, who has studied the Isis hymns at Philae extensively, traced how a number of the texts at Philae were adapted from preexisting sources to suit both the space they had available at Philae and the Goddess they were praising.

Yet this particular hymn is in praise of Mut; and it is especially interesting because it is in the form of a crossword. Known as the Crossword Hymn to Mut (obviously enough), the instructions say to read it “three ways.” Indeed, it can be read horizontally and vertically. Scholars guess that the third way might be around the edges, but the artifact is too damaged to be sure that works.

Mut with a phallus from the Book of Doors oracle deck

Mut’s name means simply “Mother.” It is spelled with the vulture hieroglyph, which also connects Her with one of the Two Ladies of Egypt, Nekhebet the Vulture Goddess Who was the protectress of Upper Egypt.

According to Horapollo, supposed to be an Egyptian priest or grammarian of the fourth century CE, Egyptian tradition had it that there were no male vultures. Female vultures were thought to remain virgin, but to become pregnant by exposing their vulvas to the north wind. (The north wind was associated with the coming of the inundation and thus with fertility.) Thus Mut is a Virgin Mother. In Her Crossword Hymn, we see Her both as the maiden Daughter of Re and the Great Mother, since everyone comes into existence through Her.

But Mut also has a powerful lioness aspect. In this form, She is one of the Raging and Returning Goddesses, like Sakhmet, Hathor, and Tefnut. In the Book of the Dead, Spell 164, a magical image of Mut is described as having three faces: a vulture, a woman, and a lioness. Not only that, She has a phallus and wings and lion’s claws. The Crossword Hymn shows Her as a fierce and awesome Mother when protecting the dead. Yet it also calls Her Mistress of Joy, Mistress of Peace, and the Beloved One.

Isis with the head of a lioness from the Ombos temple

Of course, Isis, too, is a Mother Goddess. Specifically and significantly, She is the mother of Horus, Mut Nutdjer, “Mother of the God.” But She also reveals Herself as Mother of the Gods and as the Great Mother of All. As a Great Mother, Isis has inspired the devoted worship of people throughout history. During the Græco-Roman period, Isis’ motherliness toward humanity was expressed in the novel The Golden Ass by Her initiate, Lucius, who declared that Isis brings “the sweet love of a mother to the trials of the unfortunate.” This conception of Isis endures today when, for many, Isis is the very model of the Mother Goddess.

Isis from Abydos wearing the Vulture Headdress of the Mother

It should be no surprise then that Mother Isis and the Goddess Whose name is simply “Mother” would become identified. In Isis’ Roman-era temple at Shenhur, Isis is represented in four forms: as “Isis the Great, Mother of the Gods,” as “The Great Goddess Isis,” as Mut, and as Nephthys Nebet-Ihy (a festive form of Nephthys). In Mut’s Crossword Hymn, Mut is said to be “under the king as the throne,” just as Isis’ very name means “Throne.”

In the Book of the Dead, the “vulture of gold” to be placed at the neck of the deceased is associated with Isis. Both Isis and Mut wear the Vulture Headdress, though Mut wears over it the combined Red and White Crowns. Both are Eye Goddesses and Uraeus Goddesses and as such are assimilated with Bast and Sakhmet. Both, as Great of Magic, take the prominent place of the divine barque to defend and protect the Sun God. And of course, both are Divine Mothers; Isis of Horus and Mut of Khonsu. Isis and Mut are considered to be the mother of the pharaoh and They ultimately mother those of us devoted to Them.

I started this post because I wanted to share with you the amazing Crossword Hymn of Mut. But as I write, I am again struck by this idea of the correspondences between the Great Goddesses of Egypt (and the Great Gods, for that matter). They share mythology. They share epithets. And They share the ability to appear as each other “in Her name of fill-in-the-blank.” This capacity, along with the ancient Egyptian idea that the Deities could combine Their identities or be the Ba-soul of another Deity points at an underlying unity of the Divine in the midst of a thriving polytheism.

Isis the Mother

10_luxor_museum_-_Mut_-_dated_19_dynasty_c_1279_to_1213_BC — The Mother

Here are some lines (though not all of them) from a particularly interesting New Kingdom hymn to the Goddess.

I have simplified some of the lacunae and made the appropriate capitalizations.

See if you can guess which Goddess the hymn praises:

“…great of sunlight, Who illumines [the entire land with] Her rays. She is His Eye, Who causes the land to prosper, the glorious eye of Harakhti, the Ruler of What Exists, the Great and Powerful Mistress, life being in Her possession in this Her name […]
[…] in the circuit. The Gods are in … Great of Might. Her Eye has illumined the horizon. The Ennead, Their hearts are glad because of Her, the Mistress of Their Joy, in this Her name of Heaven.
She is in their hearts, they being glad when She ascends to Her abode, Her temple. She has appeared and has shone as the Woman of Gold […] of best pure silver. All lands give Her their divine property in Her name, and their standards of their places. They rejoice for Her and Her beauty which belongs to Her. Everyone comes into existence through Her when he is created, say the Living in this temple.
There exists no one like Her on earth. She who lives by the might of Her word.
[…] the Great One of the Throne […] She is […] of forms, Great of Property, Mistress of That Which Exists. The papyrus flourishes.”

This Goddess is also called Mistress of the Gods, Queen of Heaven, Great Goddess, Mighty Goddess, Lady of the Two Lands.

The hymn could well be used to praise Isis. Because it seems that all the Great Goddesses, at one time or another, were called by each other’s epithets and even by each other’s names. (See how that applies to Nephthys here.) Louis Zabkar, who has studied the Isis hymns at Philae extensively, traced how a number of the texts at Philae were adapted from preexisting sources to suit both the space they had available at Philae and the Goddess they were praising.

But this particular hymn is in praise of Mut; and it is especially interesting because it is in the form of a crossword. Known as the Crossword Hymn to Mut (obviously enough), the instructions say to read it “three ways.” Indeed, it can be read horizontally and vertically. Scholars guess that the third way might be around the edges, but the artifact is too damaged to be sure that works.

According to Horapollo, supposed to be an Egyptian magician of the fourth century CE, Egyptian tradition had it that there were no male vultures. Female vultures were thought to remain virgin, but to become pregnant by exposing their vulvas to the north wind. Thus Mut is a Virgin Mother. In Her Crossword Hymn, we see Her both as the maiden Daughter of Re and the Great Mother, since everyone comes into existence through Her.

It almost goes without saying that Isis is a Mother Goddess. Specifically and significantly, She is the mother of Horus, Mut Nutdjer, “Mother of the God.” But She also reveals Herself as Mother of the Gods and as the Great Mother of All. As Great Mother, Isis has inspired the devoted worship of women and men throughout history. During the Græco-Roman period, Her motherliness toward humanity was expressed in the novel The Golden Ass by Her initiate, Lucius, who declared that Isis brings “the sweet love of a mother to the trials of the unfortunate.” This conception of Isis endures today when, for many, Isis is the very model of the Mother Goddess.

As Isis the Kite protects Osiris by enfolding Him in Her wings, so in one of the Books of the Dead, a vulture-headed Mut is shown enfolding Osiris in the same way. On a pectoral found in Tutankhamon’s funerary equipment, a vulture, labeled “Isis”, guards the king. In the Book of the Dead, the “vulture of gold” to be placed at the neck of the deceased is associated with Isis. Both Isis and Mut wear the Vulture Headdress, though Mut wears over it the combined Red and White Crowns. Both are Eye Goddesses and Uraeus Goddesses and as such are assimilated with Bast and Sakhmet. Both, as Great of Magic, take the prominent place of the divine barque to defend and protect the Sun God. And of course, both are Divine Mothers; Isis of Horus and Mut of Khonsu. Isis and Mut are considered to be the mother of the pharaoh and They ultimately mother those of us devoted to Them.

I started this post because I wanted to share with you the amazing Crossword Hymn of Mut. But now I am being struck by this idea of the correspondences of the Great Goddesses (and the Great Gods, for that matter). The more I study, the more I find that They share mythology, share epithets, and share the ability to appear as each other “in Her name of fill-in-the-blank.” This capacity, along with the ancient Egyptian idea that the Deities could combine Their identities or be the Ba-soul of another Deity points at an underlying unity of the Divine, even in the midst of a thriving polytheism. Works for me.

Isis Great of Magic; Iset Werethekau

“Great of Magic” is absolutely my favorite and most-used epithet of the Goddess. It is Her power name. It is the one that gives me tingles at the back of my neck when I say it. It is the one that invokes Her deepest core, Her magical heart, the ones that makes me want to kiss the ground before Her beautiful and fierce face. I have turned several Sakhmet sacred images into Werethekau for my altar with the addition of a serpent around Their shoulders. You’ll see why that works below.

“O, Isis, Great of Magic, deliver me from all bad, evil, and typhonic things…” —Ebers Papyrus, 1500 BCE

Isis is not the only Goddess Who is called Great of Magic. Many of the Great Goddesses bear that epithet, too: Hathor, Sakhmet, Mut, Wadjet, among others. Gods are also Great of Magic, notably Set in the Pyramid Texts.

There is also an independent Goddess named Werethekau. As so many Deities were, She was associated with the king, and especially during his coronation. There had been some doubt among Egyptologists about whether Werethekau was indeed a separate Goddess. But recently, Ahmed Mekawy Ouda of Cairo University has been doing a lot of work tracking Her down. He’s gathered references to a priesthood and temples for Her that seem quite clear. More on all that in a moment.

“The Akhet’s door has been opened, its doorbolts have drawn back. He has come to you, Red Crown; he has come to you, Fiery One; he has come to you, Great One; he has come to you, Great of Magic—clean for you and fearful because of you . . . He has come to you, Great of Magic: he is Horus, encircled by the aegis of his eye, the Great of Magic.”

—Pyramid Texts of Unis, 153

I wonder whether there might be some primordial connection between the Great of Magic royal crowns and the Great of Magic royal throne—Who is Iset, the Goddess Throne. Perhaps we can understand the accouterments of kingship as personified extensions of the Power, Divinity, and Magic of the Living Great Goddesses, which were empowered by Them in order to bestow upon the king his own power, divinity, and magic.

The magic of the crowns is enhanced by the protective uraeus serpents often shown upon them. They’re not just snakes, of course; They’re Goddesses. Most often, the Uraeus Goddesses are Wadjet and Nekhbet or Isis and Nephthys, representing Lower and Upper Egypt. But Werethekau is a Uraeus Goddess, too. The uraei are also known as “Eyes” due to the similarity between the Egyptian word for “eye” (iret) and the word for “the doer” (iret)—for the Eyes of the Deities are the Divine Powers that go out to do things (much like the active and feminine Shakti power in Hinduism.)

The Pyramid Texts of King Merenre associate the Eyes with the crowns:

“You are the god who controls all the Gods, for the Eye has emerged in your head as the Nile Valley Great-of-Magic Crown, the Eye has emerged in your head as the Delta Great-of-Magic Crown, Horus has followed you and desired you, and you are apparent as the Dual King, in control of all the Gods and Their kas as well.”

—Pyramid Texts of Merenre, 52

The Uraeus Goddesses or Eyes are powerful, holy cobras Who emit Light and spit Fire against the enemies of the king and the Deities. More about Isis as Uraeus Goddess here.