SG : 2158
SCOTT :
C239
Nekhbet
Nekhbet (/ˈnɛkˌbɛt/;
also spelt Nekhebit) was an
early predynastic
local goddess in Egyptian mythology
who was the patron of the city
of Nekheb, her name
meaning of
Nekheb.
Ultimately, she became the patron of Upper Egypt
and one of the two patron deities for
all of Ancient Egypt
when it was unified.
Mythology
Egypt’s oldest
oracle was the
shrine of Nekhbet at Nekheb, the original
necropolis
or city of the dead. It was the
companion city to Nekhen, the
religious and political capital of Upper Egypt at the end of
the Predynastic
period (c. 3200–3100 BC) and
probably, also during the Early
Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC). The
original settlement on the Nekhen site dates from
Naqada I or the
late Badarian cultures. At
its height, from about 3400 BC, Nekhen had at least 5,000 and
possibly as many as 10,000 inhabitants.
The priestesses
of Nekhbet were called
muu
(mothers) and wore robes of
Egyptian vulture feathers.
Nekhbet was
the tutelary deity
of Upper Egypt. Nekhbet and
her Lower Egyptian
counterpart Wadjet often
appeared together as the "Two Ladies". One of
the titles of each
ruler was the Nebty name, which began with the hieroglyphs
for [s/he] of the
Two Ladies....
In art,
Nekhbet was depicted as a vulture, appearing on the front of
pharaoh’s double crown along with Wadjet. Nekhbet usually was
depicted hovering, with her wings spread above the royal image,
clutching a shen symbol
(representing infinity,
all, or everything), frequently in her
claws.[2]
As patron of the pharaoh, she was
sometimes seen to be the mother of the divine aspect of the
pharaoh, and it was in this capacity that she was
Mother of
Mothers, and
the Great White
Cow of Nekheb.
In some late
texts of the Book of the
Dead, Nekhbet is referred to as
Father of Fathers,
Mother of Mothers, who hath existed from the Beginning, and is
Creatrix of this World.
When pairing
began to occur in the Egyptian
pantheon, giving most of the goddesses a
husband, Nekhbet took as consort Hapy, a deity of
the inundation of the Nile. Given the
early and constant association of Nekhbet with being a good mother,
in later myths she was said to have adopted
children.
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