Egyptian · Egyptian · c. 1320 BCE
The Book of the Heavenly Cow
Anonymous; from the royal tombs of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties
Humanity plots against an ageing Ra, and he sends his Eye against them as Hathor; she kills until the killing is its own appetite, and is stopped only by a flooded field of beer dyed red, which she drinks in mistake for blood. The text is the corpus's best evidence that the Egyptian pantheon knew perfectly well what it had made — a protective goddess and a slaughtering one are the same goddess, and the myth exists to explain how she is turned back.
Read The Book of the Heavenly Cow in full at the linked edition →What this text attests · 2
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | The same goddess as the one above, before and after the killing. The text does not present the gentle Hathor and the murderous Sekhmet as opposed figures but as one figure in two states, which is why Egyptian religion could hold both without needing a devil to file the second under. | |
| — | — | 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. |
