Deity · Egyptian · c. 3000 BCE
Neith
Also called Net · also recorded as nrt (per Wikidata)
One of the oldest deities attested in Egypt, a weaver and a warrior who is called on to arbitrate when the gods themselves cannot agree.
Well sourced
One of the oldest names in the record and one of the least like the rest of the pantheon: a goddess of weaving and of the bow, mother of Sobek, and in some accounts a creator who came before the gods rather than among them. The Contendings of Horus and Set gives her the position that matters here — the tribunal cannot decide the case, writes to her for a ruling, and abides by the answer. A goddess deferred to by a court of gods, honoured with a national festival of lamps at Sais that Herodotus watched, is not the marginal figure her single citation used to imply, which is why she now carries two.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Sais in the Delta, ancient enough that the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty made her its state goddess.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Contendings of Horus and Set · c. 1160 BCE
- Rank
- Lady of Sais
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Sais in the Delta, ancient enough that the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty made her its state goddess.
- Era
- c. 3000 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Great Gods of Egypt
Traits
- Domain
- Weaving, war, hunting, the primordial waters, arbitration
- Traditional form
- A woman in the red crown with crossed arrows and a shield
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
now Sa el-Hagar
Neith's Delta city, and the state cult of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.
30.967, 30.774 · Pleiades 727217
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Neith, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- knowledge1
- martial3
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Neith, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 730 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Neith, Athena
The tribunal of gods deadlocks over Horus and Set, writes to her for a ruling, and abides by the answer she sends back.
The goddess of Sais, whose festival of lamps Herodotus describes as one of the great gatherings of Egypt. Her other attestation here is the Contendings, where the tribunal writes to her for a ruling; a goddess deferred to by a court of gods and honoured with a national festival is not the marginal figure her single citation implied.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Neith?
Is Neith the same as Athena?
What rank is Neith?
How else is Neith spelled?
What is Neith said to do?
How old is Neith?
Nearest in the corpus
If Neith is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Neith
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Contendings of Horus and Set
Anonymous; Chester Beatty Papyrus I · c. 1160 BCE · Egyptian
Read The Contendings of Horus and Set in full ↗The Histories, Book II
Herodotus; tr. G. C. Macaulay · c. 430 BCE · Ancient Greek
Read The Histories, Book II in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Unknown · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.