User:Clanging/Neith

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The earliest appearance of Neith as a human has been placed somewhere in the late First dynasty or early Second.^[1] The earliest reference to Neith as a creator deity is found on the sarcophagus of King Memeptah of the Nineteenth Dynasty.^[1]

Funerary Religion

Neith appears sporadically in the Pyramid texts, usually in association with the goddesses Isis, Nepthys, and Selket. These four initially appear as protectors of royal remains, or in other cases attendant to Osiris, Neith later would later appear in the funerary practices of commoners as well.^[1] The Coffin Texts portray Neith as involved in the judgement of the dead, and in her role as a patron goddess for weavers she is associated with the wrappings of mummies.

Neith /ˈniː.ɪθ/ (Koine Greek: Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic form Ancient Egyptian: nt, also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an ancient Egyptian deity, possibly of Libyan origin^[1]. She was connected with warfare, as indicated by her emblem of two crossed bows^[1], and with motherhood, as shown by texts that call her the mother of particular deities, such as the sun god Ra and the crocodile god Sobek.^[1][2] As a mother goddess, she was sometimes said to be the creator of the world.^[2] She also had a presence in funerary religion, and this aspect of her character grew over time: she became one of the four goddesses who protected the coffin and internal organs of the deceased.^[3]

It has been theorized that Neith's primary cult point in the Old Kingdom was established in Saïs (modern Sa el-Hagar) by Hor-Aha of the First Dynasty, in an effort to placate the residents of Lower Egypt by the ruler of the unified country^[4]. Textual and iconographic evidence indicates that she was a national goddess for Old Kingdom Egypt, with her own sanctuary in Memphis, indicating the high regard held for her. There, she was known as "North of her Wall", as counterpoise to Ptah's "South of his Wall" epithet^[4]. While Neith is generally regarded as a deity of Lower Egypt, her worship was not consistently located in that delta region. Her cult reached its height in Saïs and apparently in Memphis in the Old Kingdom^[1][5], and remained important, although to a lesser extent, through the Middle and New Kingdom. Her cult regained cultural prominence again during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty when worship at Saïs flourished again^[5], as well as at Esna in Upper Egypt.

Sometimes Neith was pictured as a woman nursing a baby crocodile, and she then was addressed with the title, "Nurse of Crocodiles"^[2], reflecting a southern provincial mythology in Upper Egypt that she served as the mother of the crocodile god, Sobek. As the mother of Ra, in her Mehet-Weret form, she was sometimes described as the "Great Cow who gave birth to Ra". As a maternal figure (beyond being the birth-mother of the sun-god Ra), Neith is associated with Sobek as her son (as early as the Pyramid Texts), but in later religious conventions that paired deities, no male deity is consistently identified with her in a pair and so, she often is represented without one^[6]. Later triad associations made with her have little or no religious or mythological supporting references, appearing to have been made by political or regional associations only.

The click beetle (likely specifically agrypnus notodonta) is one of the beetles depicted in ancient Egyptian art. The shape of the beetle resembles the shape of some ancient Egyptian shields, and necklaces with beads shaped like the beetle have been found. Additionally, the beetles have been found depicted as part of a symbol of Neith.^[7] This association appears as early as the Protodynastic period, and may be the origin of one of Neith's stylized cult signs.^[8]The imagery of the beetle in association with Neith may have morphed over time into that of a shield.^[1]

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An analysis of her attributes shows Neith was a goddess with many roles. From predynastic and early dynasty periods, she was referred to as an "Opener of the Ways" (same as Wepwawet),^[9][1] which may have referred, not only to her leadership in hunting and war but also as a psychopomp in cosmic and underworld pathways, escorting souls. References to Neith as the "Opener of Paths" occurs in Dynasty Four through Dynasty Six, and Neith is seen in the titles of women serving as priestesses of the goddess. Such epithets include: "Priestess of Neith who opens all the (path)ways", "Priestess of Neith who opens the good pathways", "Priestess of Neith who opens the way in all her places". (el-Sayed, I: 67-69). el-Sayed asserts his belief that Neith should be seen as a parallel to Wepwawet, the ancient jackal god of Upper Egypt, who was associated in that southern region with both royalty in victory and as a psychopomp for the dead.

The main imagery of Neith as Wepwawet was as the deity of the unseen and limitless sky, as opposed to representations of Nut and Hathor, who respectively represented the manifested night and day skies.^[10] Neith's epithet as the "Opener of the Sun's paths in all her stations" refers to how the sun is reborn (due to seasonal changes) at various points in the sky, under Neith's control of all beyond the visible world, of which only a glimpse is revealed prior to dawn and after sunset. It is at these changing points that Neith reigns as a form of sky goddess, where the sun rises and sets daily, or at its 'first appearance' to the sky above and below. It is at these points, beyond the sky that is seen, that Neith's true power as the deity who creates life is manifested.^{[citation needed]}

Georges St. Clair noted that Neith is represented at times as a cow goddess with a line of stars across her back^[11] (as opposed to representations of Nut with stars across the belly) [See el-Sayed, II, Doc. 644], and maintained this indicated that Neith represents the full ecliptic circle around the sky (above and below), and is seen iconographically in ancient texts as both the regular and the inverted determinative for the heavenly vault, indicating the cosmos below the horizon. St. Clair maintained it was this realm that Neith personified, for she is the complete sky that surrounds the upper (Nut) and lower (Nunet?) sky, and who exists beyond the horizon, and thereby, beyond the skies themselves. Neith, then, is that portion of the cosmos that is not seen, and in which the sun is reborn daily, below the horizon (which may reflect the statement assigned to Neith as "I come at dawn and at sunset daily").^[12]

Since Neith also was goddess of war, she thus had an additional association with death: in this function, she shot her arrows into the enemies of the dead, and thus she began to be viewed as a protector of the dead, often appearing as a uraeus snake to drive off intruders and those who would harm the deceased (in this form she is represented in the tomb of Tutankhamun). She also is shown as the protectress of one of the Four sons of Horus, specifically Duamutef, the god who protected the stomach. Through her role as a goddess of weaving, she was associated with the wrappings of mummies.^[13][1]

In some ancient Egyptian creation myths, Neith was identified as the mother of Ra and Apep.^[2] When she was identified as a water goddess, she was viewed as the mother of Sobek, the crocodile.^[14] It was because of this association with water, i.e. the Nile, that during pairing of deities she sometimes was considered the wife of Khnum and sometimes was associated with the source of the River Nile. In that cult center, she also was associated with the Nile Perch as well as being the goddess of the triad.

As the goddess of creation and weaving, she was said to reweave the world on her loom daily.^[15] An interior wall of the temple at Esna records an account of creation in which Neith brings forth the Nun, the first land, from the primeval waters. All that she conceived in her heart comes into being, including all thirty deities. Having no husband she has been described as "Virgin Mother Goddess":

Unique Goddess, mysterious and great who came to be in the beginning and caused everything to come to be. The divine mother of Ra, who shines on the horizon...^[16]

Proclus (412–485 AD) wrote that the adyton of the temple of Neith in Sais (of which nothing now remains) carried the following inscription:

I am the things that are, that will be, and that have been. No one has ever laid open the garment by which I am concealed. The fruit which I brought forth was the sun.^[17]

It was said that at the request of Thoth, Neith interceded in the kingly war between Horus and Set, over the Egyptian throne, recommending that Horus rule^[6].

A great festival, called the Feast of Lamps, was held annually in honor of Neith and, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, her devotees burned a multitude of lights in the open air all night during the celebration^[15][1].