Hathor

In Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics : ḥwt-ḥr; in Greek: Ἅθωρ, meaning "mansion of Horus")                              is an ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of joy, feminine love, and motherhood. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of ancient Egypt.

Hathor was worshipped by royalty and common people alike. In tomb paintings, she is often depicted as "Mistress of the West", welcoming the dead into the next life. In other roles, she was a goddess of music, dance, foreign lands, and fertility. She was believed to assist women in childbirth.                                 She was also believed to be the patron goddess of miners.

The cult of Hathor predates the historic period, and the roots of devotion to her are therefore difficult to trace. Though it may be a development of predynastic cults that venerated fertility, and nature in general, represented by cows.

Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with horns in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus. Twin feathers are also sometimes shown in later periods as well as a menat necklace. Hathor may be the cow goddess who is depicted from an early date on the Narmer Palette and on a stone urn dating from the 1st dynasty that suggests a role as sky-goddess and a relationship to Horus who, as a sun god, is "housed" in her.

The ancient Egyptians viewed reality as multi-layered, and saw deities who merged while retaining divergent attributes and myths as complementary rather than contradictory.                                              Hathor's relationship with Ra is complicated - she is described as his mother, daughter, and wife (though not necessarily simultaneously,) and like Isis, is at times described as the mother of Horus. She is also associated with Bast.

The cult of Osiris promised eternal life to those deemed morally worthy. Originally, the justified dead became an Osiris regardless of gender, but by early Roman times only men were identified with Osiris, with women being identified with Hathor.

The ancient Greeks, meanwhile, sometimes identified Hathor with the goddess Aphrodite.

Early period

Hathor is ambiguously depicted until the fourth dynasty.In the historical era Hathor is shown using the imagery of a cow deity. Artifacts from pre-dynastic times depict cow deities using the same symbolism as used in later times for Hathor and Egyptologists speculate that these deities may be one and the same or precursors to Hathor.

A cow deity appears on the belt of the King on the Narmer Palette dated to the pre-dynastic era, and this may be Hathor or, in another guise, the goddess Bat with whom she is linked and later supplanted. At times they are regarded as one and the same goddess, though likely having separate origins, and reflections of the same divine concept. The evidence pointing to the deity being Hathor in particular is based on a passage from the Pyramid texts which states that the King's apron comes from Hathor.

A stone urn recovered from Hierakonpolis and dated to the first dynasty has on its rim the face of a cow deity with stars on its ears and horns that may relate to Hathor's, or Bat's, role as a sky-goddess. Another artifact from the first dynasty shows a cow lying down on an ivory engraving with the inscription "Hathor in the Marshes" indicating her association with vegetation and the papyrus marsh in particular. From the Old Kingdom she was also called Lady of the Sycamore in her capacity as a tree deity