Deity · Egyptian · c. 2400 BCE
Sekhmet
Also called Sacmis (per Wikidata)
Sent by the Egyptian sun-god to destroy humanity, and stopped only by being tricked into drinking beer dyed red. Her priests were physicians: she sends pestilence and she lifts it.
Well sourced
Her priests were physicians; the same power that sent epidemic disease was the power petitioned to lift it, and there is no sense in the texts that this is a contradiction. In the Book of the Heavenly Cow, Ra unleashes her against rebellious humanity and then has to stop her himself by flooding the fields with red-dyed beer, which she drinks in mistake for blood until she is too drunk to continue. The tradition preserves both her necessity and her danger without resolving them.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Memphis, beside Ptah as his consort; hundreds of her statues were set up at Karnak by Amenhotep III.
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 Egyptian Book of the Dead · c. 1550 BCE onward
- Rank
- The Powerful One
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Memphis, beside Ptah as his consort; hundreds of her statues were set up at Karnak by Amenhotep III.
- Era
- c. 2400 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Great Gods of Egypt
Traits
- Domain
- Plague, war, healing, the destructive heat of the sun
- Traditional form
- Lion-headed woman with the solar disc
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 Mit Rahina
Ptah's Hut-ka-Ptah, whose Greek form gave Egypt its name.
Beside Ptah as his consort.
29.849, 31.255 · Pleiades 736963
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Sekhmet, 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.
- martial1
- malefic2
- material1
1 mark
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Sekhmet, 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 230 years
The destructive aspect of the solar eye, loosed against the enemies of Ra.
The slaughtering form of the Eye, sent against humanity for plotting and then unable to stop. Ra ends it by flooding the fields with beer dyed red, which she takes for blood and drinks until she is too drunk to continue. The corpus's clearest case of a god being stopped by trickery rather than by a stronger god.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Nergal
Deities of plague who are also petitioned for its cure.
Identified with Kali
Goddesses of battle-fury who must be stopped by an intervention rather than defeated.
Identified with Rudra
Senders of disease who are also its physicians.
Identified with Hathor
The Heavenly Cow narrative makes them the pacified and raging faces of one Eye.
Identified with Bastet
The lioness domesticated; both daughters of Ra.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Sekhmet?
Is Sekhmet the same as Nergal?
What rank is Sekhmet?
How else is Sekhmet spelled?
What is Sekhmet said to do?
How old is Sekhmet?
Nearest in the corpus
If Sekhmet 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 Sekhmet
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 Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · Wikimedia file page
The Book of the Heavenly Cow
Anonymous; from the royal tombs of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties · c. 1320 BCE · Egyptian
Read The Book of the Heavenly Cow in full ↗
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.