Anqet

Anqet

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Anqet, was the third member of the triad of Elephantine, which consisted of Khenmu, Sati, and Anqet, and she seems to have possessed many attributes of her sister-goddess Sati. In pictures Anqet is represented in the form of a women who holds in her hands the scepter, and the emblem of "life," ; she wears on her head a crown of feathers which are arranged in such a way as to suggest a savage origin. She appears to have been originally a goddess of some island in the First Cataract, but in early dynastic times she was associated with Khnemu and Sati, and her worship was common throughout Northern Nubia ; later the center of her worship was at Sahal, and she was regarded as a goddess of that t island,a nd was called "lady of Setet,",Nebt Satet. Her temple there seems to have been named "Amen-heri-ab," but it is clear from the appearance of amen's name in its title that it cannot be older than the XVIIIth Dynasty. At Philae another temple was built in her honor, and it bore the name of "Pa-mer," and it seems that from this island southwards she was identified with Nepthys. In very early times Osiris, Isis, and Nephtys were associated in a triad, and as Osirsi was a form of Khenmu, and Khenmu a form of Osiris,a nd Isis and sti were sister goddesses, it followed as a matter of course that Anqet should be identified with Nephtys. According to Dr. Brugsch, the name "anqet is derived from the root word anq, "to surround, to embrace," and the like and has reference to the goddess as the personification of the waters of the Nile which embrace, and nourish, and fructify the fields. Among the pictures of Anqet reproduced by Signor Lanzone is one in which the goddess is seen seated in a shrine with a table of offerings before her; the shrine is placed in a boat, at each end of which is an aegis of a goddess, who wears on her head a disk and horns, and is probably Isis :the boat floats on a stream from which runs a small arm. The goddess is styled "Anqet, lady of Satet {i.e.,"the Island of Sahal' lady of heaven, mistress of all gods,". In another picture she is seen suckling a young king whose neck she embraces with her left arm, and in a text which accompanies another representation she is described as the "giver of life, and of all power, and of all "health, and of all joy of heart," we have now to consider two very important forms of Khnemu, that is to say,.

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