Sekhmet, Powerful One, Sun Goddess, Destructor...

by Caroline Seawright

Sekhmet, Powerful One, Sun Goddess, Destructor...

-- Inscription on a statue of Sekhmet

The lion-headed goddess Sekhmet (Sakhmet, Sekhet) was a member of the Memphite Triad, thought to be the wife of Ptah and mother of Nefertem (though the motherhood of Nefertem was in dispute - Bast and Wadjet were touted as his mother in their respective cities). Associated with war and retribution, she was said to use arrows to pierce her enemies with fire, her breath being the hot desert wind as her body took on the glare of the midday sun. She represented the destructive force of the sun.

According to the legends, she came into being when Hathor was sent to earth by Ra to take vengeance on man. She was the one who slaughtered mankind and drank their blood, only being stopped by trickery (this story can be found under Hathor's story). She was, thus, the destructive side of the sun, and a solar goddess and given the title Eye of Ra.

Being mother of Nefertem, who himself was a healing god, gives her a more protective side that manifested itself in her aspect of goddess of healing and surgery. Part of her destruction side was also disease and plague, as the 'Lady of Pestilence'... but she could also cure said ailments. The priests of Sekhmet were specialists in the field of medicine, arts linked to ritual and magic. They were also trained surgeons of remarkable caliber. Pharaoh Amenhotep III had many statues of Sekhmet, and it has been theorized that this was because he dental and health problems that he hoped the goddess may cure.

Hundreds of Amenhotep's Sekhmet statues were found in the Theban temple precinct of the goddess Mut at South Karnak. The statues may have been made for the king's funerary temple on the West Bank of the Nile and may have been dispersed to other sites at Thebes and elsewhere beginning with the reign of Ramesses II. Sekhmet was depicted as a lion-headed woman with the sun disk and uraeus serpent headdress. Although she is connected with Bast, she has no relationship with the cat goddess. They are two distinct goddesses in their own rights - the Egyptians did not claim they were siblings of any kind. Bast and Sekhmet were an example of Egyptian duality - Sekhmet was a goddess of Upper Egypt, Bast of Lower Egypt (just like the pharaoh was of Upper and/or Lower Egypt!)... and they were linked together by geography, not by myth or legend.

Sekhmet was mentioned a number of times in the spells of the Book of the Dead:

The Chapter of Driving Back the Slaughters Which are Performed in Hensu

The Chapter of Giving a Heart to the Osiris
May the goddess Sekhmet raise me, and lift me up. Let me ascend into heaven, let that which I command be performed in Het-ka-Ptah. I know how to use my heart. I am master of my heart-case. I am master of my hands and arms. I am master of my legs. I have the power to do that which my KA desireth to do. My Heart-soul shall not be kept a prisoner in my body at the gates of Amentet when I would go in in peace and come forth in peace.

The Osiris Whose Word is Truth
I have made supplication to the Khati gods and to Sekhmet in the temple of Net (Neith), or the Aged Ones ... I have approached with worship the two Khati gods and Sekhmet, who are in the temple of the Aged One [in Anu].

The Chapter of Opening the Mouth
I am the goddess Sekhmet, and I take my seat upon the place by the side of Amt-ur the great wind of heaven.

Her cult center was in Memphis, but during the New Kingdom when the seat of power shifted to Thebes, Sekhmet's powers were absorbed by Mut. Sekhmet was soon represented as Mut's aggressive side, rather than a goddess in her own right.

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