User:Spetrico/Sekhmet

Sekhmet was the daughter of the sun god, Ra, and was among the more important of the goddesses who acted as the vengeful manifestation of Ra's power, the Eye of Ra. Sekhmet was said to breathe fire, and the hot winds of the desert were likened to her breath. She was also believed to cause plagues (which were called as her servants or messengers) although she was also called upon to ward off disease. Sekhmet's name means "the mighty one" and she often utilized her powers as the Eyes of Ra. Sekhmet was then formed into significant parts of a lion that could pose danger and concern within the Earth, to serve as a message from Ra. Ra did not want the peace on Earth to be broken, nor the rules of his own practices. Sekhmet is seen as both an aggressive and healing goddess. Priest sought to make peace with Sekhmet, in an effort to avoid the diseases and plagues that multiple stories attributed their causes to her. The goddess of war and of healing, Sekhmet, presents an extraordinary amount of power towards others as the ability to further escalate and heal disease lies within Sekhmet's own control. Sekhmet provided a degree of good to individuals within society and the Earth by holding the power to heal diseases. The title of "Mistress of Life," was given to her as she placed care and responsibility in healing aspects of the world. Sekhmet was most commonly represented as a woman with the head of a lioness, with long haired wig and a solar disc on her head. Her dress was often colored red, with a rosette pattern over her shoulders. This pattern is thought to have reflected the 'shoulder star' of the Leo constellation, which has been marked in Egyptian astronomical paintings.

During an annual festival held at the beginning of the year, a festival of intoxication, the Egyptians danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess and drank great quantities of wine ritually to imitate the extreme drunkenness that stopped the wrath of the goddess—when she almost destroyed humanity. Normandi Ellis, an Egyptologist and author, explains that Sekhmet's main festival was celebrated in August. During this time in Egypt, the star Sirius rises before the sun. This early rising of the star was a metaphor to change for the Ancient Egyptians that occurred each year in the final days of summer. At this point, the icecaps melted enough for the Nile to flood once again, and the drought to end.

In 2006, Betsy Bryan, an archaeologist with Johns Hopkins University excavating at the temple of Mut in Luxor (Thebes) presented her findings about the festival that included illustrations of the priestesses being served to excess and its adverse effects on them being ministered to by temple attendants. Participation in the festival was great, including by the priestesses and the population. Historical records of tens of thousands attending the festival exist. These findings were made in the temple of Mut because when Thebes rose to greater prominence Mut absorbed some characteristics of Sekhmet. These temple excavations at Luxor discovered a "porch of drunkenness" built onto the temple by the Pharaoh Hatshepsut during the height of her twenty-year reign. Further images of Sekhmet have been found in correlation to Amenhotep III. There have been sculptures found of Sekhmet commissioned by him in the locations of Karnak, Thebes, and at the Hearst Castle. The images seen at the latter are the oldest known works at that cite. Many of Sekhmet's statues after excavation were displaced from their creation place in Egypt, appearing in such as the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum.

Second-wave feminists approached goddesses like Sekhmet as an approach to spirituality that went against the male-centric ones of Judeo-Christian regions. These women learned to worship ancient figures of women, in an effort to correct their exclusion from contemporary Western regions.