Statue of Hathor from Luxor Museum
Hathor was worshipped in ancient Egypt as the winged cow of creation who held up the whole universe on her four feet. She was depicted as having cow’s horns with the sun in the middle. These days she would have to be called the goddess of multi-tasking for there was nothing she couldn’t do. She was associated with love—all kinds, dance, art, music, fertility, pregnant women, childbirth, and drunkenness. Now, a drunken cow might be stretching things a bit too much, but Hathor was no ordinary bovine. She had various honourable epithets such as Mistress of Heaven, The Lady of the Stars, Great Wild Cow, Lady of Sycamore, The Golden One, The Eye of Ra, The Lady of the West, The Lady of Lapis Lazuli, and so on and on.
Hathor as a cow, wearing her necklace and showing her sacred eye - Papyrus of Ani.
As you can see she was one busy goddess, but her primary occupation was as the eye of the Sun god, Ra. She was appointed by him to watch over the earth. Once when he found that mankind was getting too big for their boots or sandals as the case may be, he sent Hathor over to teach them a lesson. A blood bath ensued and even Ra couldn’t convince her that enough was enough. Finally he hit upon a marvellous plan, according to which he procured seven thousand jars of beer that had the colour of blood, and by night, flooded the fields with it. Thinking it was blood, her beverage of choice; she lapped it all up and went into a drunken stupor that added the tag of drunken goddess to her already colourful resume. While she was still reeling, Ra managed to employ some Linguistic Programming and convinced her that she was of a loving, peaceful nature. Ra then ordered mankind to remember the day as the day they almost perished because of Hathor’s fury. Mankind immediately decided to hold an annual feast in her honour and did all they could to appease her. It was their turn to drink as much beer as was humanly possible.
Sculpture of Hathor as a cow, with all of her symbols, the sun disk, the cobra, as well as her necklace and crown.
Her other powers included the role of determining the future of new-borns. She would come in the guise of seven young maidens and foretell its fate right up to its journey to the Land of the West, which stood for death. Her portfolio which also proclaimed her dominion over moisture made her a natural for the post of creator and controller of floods in the Nile. She is honoured as the mother of the Pharaoh who was supposed to be an incarnation of Ra himself. This might be a little mind bending when you consider Hathor is also supposed to be the Eye of Ra.
