[citation needed], The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses,[24] and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Images of her attended by a dog[35] are also found at times when she is shown as in her role as mother goddess with child, and when she is depicted alongside the god Hermes and the goddess Cybele in reliefs. [14] This has been suggested in comparison with the attributes of the goddess Artemis, strongly associated with Apollo and frequently equated with Hecate in the classical world. 9. [3], The 2nd-century travel writer Pausanias stated that Hecate was first depicted in triplicate by the sculptor Alcamenes in the Greek Classical period of the late 5th century BCE,[4] whose sculpture was placed before the temple of the Wingless Nike in Athens. Hekate: Her Role and Character in Greek Literature from before the Fifth Century B.C. [137], In the syncretism during Late Antiquity of Hellenistic and late Babylonian ("Chaldean") elements, Hecate was identified with Ereshkigal, the underworld counterpart of Inanna in the Babylonian cosmography. The eye of Horus Egyptian Protection Symbols 10. by Michael Jordan, which is also a comprehensive encyclopedia of Goddesses. Such things they call charms, whether it is the matter of a spherical object, or a triangular one, or some other shape. In Neopaganism, the triple goddess appears in the form of three aspects of womanhood, representing the maiden, the mother, and the crone. [28], Hecate was a popular divinity, and her cult was practiced with many local variations all over Greece and Western Anatolia. [17] The word "heka" in the Egyptian language is also both the word for "magic" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka. But what we do know is that this fascinating goddess held dominion over contradictory themes: war (and violence and death), plagues (diseases), and healing and medicine. The Byzantines dedicated a statue to her as the "lamp carrier". He goes on to quote a fragment of verse: In relation to Greek concepts of pollution, Parker observes. Sometimes she is also stated to be the mother (by Aetes[76]) of the goddess Circe and the sorceress Medea,[154] who in later accounts was herself associated with magic while initially just being a herbalist goddess, similar to how Hecate's association with Underworld and Mysteries had her later converted into a deity of witchcraft. She scorns and insults Artemis, who in retribution eventually brings about the mortal's suicide. She became merely an aspect of Mut, Hathor, and Isis. An important sanctuary of Hecate was a holy cave on the island of Samothrake called Zerynthos: In Samothrake there were certain initiation-rites, which they supposed efficacious as a charm against certain dangers. The coffin texts associate her with Lower Egypt. Ankh This ancient Egyptian hieroglyph means life or living. Adopted by the pharaohs as a symbol of their own unvanquishable heroism in battle, she breathes fire against the kings enemies. To cite this article in an academic-style article or paper, use: Amy Parikh, "Sekhmet: Egypts Forgotten Esoteric Goddess", History Cooperative, March 13, 2023, https://historycooperative.org/sekhmet/. 264 f., and notes, 275277, ii. And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. [16] The concept of Athirat, Anat and Ashtart as a trinity and the only prominent goddesses in the entire region (popularized by authors like Tikva Frymer-Kensky) is modern and ignores the large role of other female deities, for example Shapash, in known texts, as well as the fact El appears to be the deity most closely linked to Athirat in primary sources. In particular she was thought to give instruction in these closely related arts. As a goddess expected to avert harmful or destructive spirits from the house or city over which she stood guard and to protect the individual as she or he passed through dangerous liminal places, Hecate would naturally become known as a goddess who could also refuse to avert the demons, or even drive them on against unfortunate individuals. We are well aware of dualities existing in the world of mythology. Mistress of Dread: She nearly destroyed human civilization and had to be drugged to sleep. [143] She was said to be the daughter of Zeus by either Asteria, according to Musaeus,[144] Hera, thus identified with Angelos,[145] or Pheraea, daughter of Aeolus;[146] the daughter of Aristaeus the son of Paion, according to Pherecydes;[147] the daughter of Nyx, according to Bacchylides;[144] the daughter of Perses, the son of Helios, by an unknown mother, according to Diodorus Siculus;[76] while in Orphic literature, she was said to be the daughter of Demeter[148] or Leto[149] or even Tartarus. Lady of the mountains of the setting sun: Watcher and guardian of the west. The dog was Hecate's regular sacrificial animal, and was often eaten in solemn sacrament. One name was known to Sekhmet and eight associated deities, and; and one name (known only to Sekhmet herself) was the means by which Sekhmet could modify her being or cease to exist. The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous but of late date. She was one of the earliest Egyptian deities and was often depicted as a cobra, as she is the serpent goddess. . [99], Hecate's island ( ) also called Psamite (), was an islet in the vicinity of Delos. Sometimes she is seen as the daughter of Geb and Nut, and sometimes as the principal daughter of Ra. [51], Hecate was said to favour offerings of garlic, which was closely associated with her cult. Apollonius of Rhodes, in the Argonautica mentions that Medea was taught by Hecate, "I have mentioned to you before a certain young girl whom Hecate, daughter of Perses, has taught to work in drugs. "[105] A secondary purpose was to purify the household and to atone for bad deeds a household member may have committed that offended Hecate, causing her to withhold her favour from them. Some of the significant ones are listed below: 1. [33][133], Hecate is the primary feminine figure in the Chaldean Oracles (2nd3rd century CE),[134] where she is associated in fragment 194 with a strophalos (usually translated as a spinning top, or wheel, used in magic) "Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate. [6] Her oldest known representation was found in Selinunte, in Sicily. [17][18] One of the authors relying on the Anat-Ashtart-Athirat trinity theory is Saul M. Olyan (author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel) who calls the Qudshu-Astarte-Anat plaque "a triple-fusion hypostasis", and considers Qudshu to be an epithet of Athirat by a process of elimination, for Astarte and Anat appear after Qudshu in the inscription. "[30], While Greek anthropomorphic conventions of art generally represented Hecate's triple form as three separate bodies, the iconography of the triple Hecate eventually evolved into representations of the goddess with a single body, but three faces. The sanctuary is built upon a hill, at the bottom of which is an Altar of the Winds, and on it the priest sacrifices to the winds one night in every year. Horus was an ancient Egyptian God of the sky, and he is typically depicted as a falcon. American Book Company, 1910. Every culture has esoteric practices, knowledge, and deities to represent both. Pages 57 to 64, Roscher, 1889; Heckenbach, 2781; Rohde, ii. In the course of this beleaguerment, it is related, on a certain wet and moonless night the enemy attempted a surprise, but were foiled by reason of a bright light which, appearing suddenly in the heavens, startled all the dogs in the town and thus roused the garrison to a sense of their danger. In ancient Egyptor Kemet, as it was known to its people at the timeone key concept was the relationship among three deities, Asar, Aset, and Heru. the biblical Asherah) in 1941. Food offerings might include cake or bread, fish, eggs and honey. [169] Researcher Samuel Fort noted additional parallels, to include the cult's focus on mystic and typically nocturnal rites, its female dominated membership, the sacrifice of other animals (to include horses and mules), a focus on the mystical properties of roads and portals, and an emphasis on death, healing, and resurrection. Lady of the flame: Sekhmet is placed as the uraeus (serpent) on Ras brow where she guarded the sun gods head and shot flames at her enemies. [76] Karl Kerenyi noted the similarity between the names, perhaps denoting a chthonic connection among the two and the goddess Persephone;[77] it is possible that this epithet gives evidence of a lunar aspect of Hecate. [125], In the Argonautica, a 3rd-century BCE Alexandrian epic based on early material,[129] Jason placates Hecate in a ritual prescribed by Medea, her priestess: bathed at midnight in a stream of flowing water, and dressed in dark robes, Jason is to dig a round pit and over it cut the throat of a ewe, sacrificing it and then burning it whole on a pyre next to the pit as a holocaust. Mooney, Carol M., "Hekate: Her Role and Character in Greek Literature from before the Fifth Century B.C." Sekhmets origins are unclear. "Beyond Erekigal? "[28], Like Hecate, "the dog is a creature of the threshold, the guardian of doors and portals, and so it is appropriately associated with the frontier between life and death, and with demons and ghosts which move across the frontier. For example, "willing" (thus, "she who works her will" or similar), may be related to the name Hecate. It was called Psamite, because Hecate was honoured with a cake, which was called psamiton (). Sekhmets father is Ra. [8][9] [155], Strmiska (2005) claimed that Hecate, conflated with the figure of Diana, appears in late antiquity and in the Early Middle Ages as part of an "emerging legend complex" known as "The Society of Diana"[161] associated with gatherings of women, the Moon, and witchcraft that eventually became established "in the area of Northern Italy, southern Germany, and the western Balkans. 1910191078, This page was last edited on 23 April 2023, at 11:43. Known to represent the three stages of man, Youth, Father, and Sage, the Horned God symbolizes the good intent. The Uraeus is a symbol for the goddess Wadjet. [130] All these elements betoken the rites owed to a chthonic deity. [79] Mooney however notes that when it comes to the nymph Perse herself, there's no evidence of her actually being a moon goddess on her own right. She received honor also in starry heaven, and is honored exceedingly by the deathless gods. Open Access Dissertations and heses. Her place of origin is debated by scholars, but she had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly[6] and an important sanctuary among the Carian Greeks of Asia Minor in Lagina. At Athens, it is said there stood a statue of Hecate Triglathena, to whom the red mullet was offered in sacrifice. 5. Each aspect within the Triple Goddess is . In addition, we particularly recommend The Book of Goddesses and Heroines. This and other early depictions of Hecate lack distinctive attributes that would later be associated with her, such as a triple form or torches, and can only be identified as Hecate thanks to their inscriptions. [98] According to Hesychius of Miletus there was once a statue of Hecate at the site of the Hippodrome in Constantinople. [58], It was probably her role as guardian of entrances that led to Hecate's identification by the mid fifth century with Enodia, a Thessalian goddess. How old is the United States of America? Hecate or Hekate[a] is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, snakes, or accompanied by dogs,[1] and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. [3] Her fight with the Giant appears in a number of ancient vase paintings and other artwork. 7. One theory is that Hesiod's original village had a substantial Hecate following and that his inclusion of her in the Theogony was a way of adding to her prestige by spreading word of her among his readers. The concept of Athirat, Anat and Ashtart as a trinity and the only prominent goddesses in the entire region (popularized by authors like Tikva Frymer-Kensky) is modern and ignores the large role of other female deities, for example Shapash, in known texts, as well as the fact El appears to be the deity most closely linked to Athirat in primary In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar. In Sanskrit it's Medha, in Greek Metis, and in Egyptian she is Ma'at herself. He also performs other secret rites [of Hecate] at four pits, taming the fierceness of the blasts [of the winds], and he is said to chant as well the charms of Medea. In a middle kingdom treatise, the wrath of the pharaoh toward rebels is compared to the rage of Sekhmet. 79, n. 1. also Ammonius (p. 79, Valckenaer), Betz, Hans Dieter, ' The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Including the Demotic Spells, Foreign Influence on Ancient India, Krishna Chandra Sagar, Northern Book Centre, 1992, Household and Family Religion in Antiquity by John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan, page 221, published by John Wiley & Sons, 2009, d'Este & Rankine, Hekate Liminal Rites, Avalonia, 2009. [Diviners] spin this sphere and make invocations. It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens. Subsequent studies tried to find further evidence for equivalence of Qetesh and Asherah, despite dissimilar functions and symbols. [85], The earliest definitive record of Hecate's worship dates to the 6th century BCE, in the form of a small terracotta statue of a seated goddess, identified as Hecate in its inscription. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Gods of Death There she was worshipped with her consort Ptah. [12] However, no sources suggested list will or willingness as a major attribute of Hecate, which makes this possibility unlikely. The possibility of not to be, of returning to nothingness, distinguishes Egyptian gods and goddesses from deities of all other pagan pantheons.[1]. She is believed to have caused plagues. Great honor comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favorably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her. Sekhmet was depicted with the body of a woman clothed in red linen, wearing a Uraeus and a sun disc on her lioness head. Is it a coincidence that the mother of the Virgin Mary is called Anna and that there is a Mary of . Some triple goddess that I know of are the following: Greek: Hekate (Hecate), Selene, and Persephone. This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polykleitos and his brother Naukydes.[87]. [15] Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, the theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult. [90] This sanctuary was called Hecatesion (Shrine of Hecate). On the night of the new moon, a meal would be set outside, in a small shrine to Hecate by the front door; as the street in front of the house and the doorway create a crossroads, known to be a place Hecate dwelled. It is difficult to distinguish Sekhmet from other feline goddesses, especially Bastet. To commemorate this timely phenomenon, which was attributed to Hecate, they erected a public statue to that goddess []". [28], By the 5th century BCE, Hecate had come to be strongly associated with ghosts, possibly due to conflation with the Thessalian goddess Enodia (meaning "traveller"), who travelled the earth with a retinue of ghosts and was depicted on coinage wearing a leafy crown and holding torches, iconography strongly associated with Hecate. She was invoked to ward off diseases. Beginning during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, a Semitic goddess named Qetesh ("holiness", sometimes reconstructed as Qudshu) appears prominently. Lagina, where the famous temple of Hecate drew great festal assemblies every year, lay close to the originally Macedonian colony of Stratonikeia, where she was the city's patron. [71] In Italy, the triple unity of the lunar goddesses Diana (the huntress), Luna (the Moon) and Hecate (the underworld) became a ubiquitous feature in depictions of sacred groves, where Hecate/Trivia marked intersections and crossroads along with other liminal deities. The Greek word for mullet was trigle and later trigla. Sekhmet represented the Lower Nile region (north Egypt). Triple Goddess: origin stories. Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos (household), alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo. "Many have been caught by the obvious resemblance of the Gr. While disclaiming all his paternal care for Cordelia, Lear says, "The mysteries of Hecate and the night, Shakespeare mentions Hecate also in King Lear. [84] Otherwise, they are typically generic, or Artemis-like. As a consort of the female Triple Goddess, the two aspects of the Horned God highlight night and day, battle and peace, sun and the moon, cold and warmth. 7000 jars of red beer are spread over the land during the night. It has been suggested that the use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the 1st century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic.[56]. Here I disclaim all my paternal care" (The Arden Shakespeare, King Lear, Page no.165), In 1929, Lewis Brown, an expert on religious cults, connected the 1920s Blackburn Cult (also known as, "The Cult of the Great Eleven,") with Hecate worship rituals. In the pyramid texts, Sekhmet is written to be the mother of the kings reborn in the afterlife. Memphis and Leontopolis were the major centers of the worship of Sekhmet, with Memphis being the principal seat. Lionesses are rarely depicted in the pre-dynastic period of Egypt yet in the early pharaonic period the lioness goddesses are already well established and important. A Handbook of Greek Religion. [21], William Berg observes, "Since children are not called after spooks, it is safe to assume that Carian theophoric names involving hekat- refer to a major deity free from the dark and unsavoury ties to the underworld and to witchcraft associated with the Hecate of classical Athens. Berg, William, "Hecate: Greek or "Anatolian"? By all the operations of the orbs "[49], The goddess is described as wearing oak in fragments of Sophocles' lost play The Root Diggers (or The Root Cutters), and an ancient commentary on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (3.1214) describes her as having a head surrounded by serpents, twining through branches of oak.[50]. [12], The arguments presenting Qetesh and Asherah as the same goddess rely on the erroneous notion that Asherah, Astarte and Anat were the only three prominent goddesses in the religion of ancient Levant, and formed a trinity. Hecate or Hekate [a] is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, snakes, or accompanied by dogs, [1] and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. [95] In Thrace she played a role similar to that of lesser-Hermes, namely a ruler of liminal regions, particularly gates, and the wilderness. Antoninus Liberalis used a myth to explain this association: Aelian told a different story of a woman transformed into a polecat: Athenaeus of Naucratis, drawing on the etymological speculation of Apollodorus of Athens, notes that the red mullet is sacred to Hecate, "on account of the resemblance of their names; for that the goddess is trimorphos, of a triple form". Of the 200 books available in open source about Egyptian mythology, hardly seven or eight had anything substantial to say about Sekhmet. (1971). There are a few that are known as the Triple Goddess and have all three phases, such as Hecate, The Morrigan, Brigid, The Three Fates. Hecate's importance to Byzantium was above all as a deity of protection. [164] Such derivations are today proposed only by a minority[165][166] Mesopotamian Magic Traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hecate&oldid=1151338190. [128], In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (composed c. 600 BCE), Hecate is called "tender-hearted", an epithet perhaps intended to emphasize her concern with the disappearance of Persephone, when she assisted Demeter with her search for Persephone following her abduction by Hades, suggesting that Demeter should speak to the god of the Sun, Helios. Looking at Egypt, Isis is the only deity that one can conceive of as being esoteric because she brought back her husband from the dead. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse. Sekhmet is a powerful and unique therianthropic (part-animal, part human-like) mother goddess from ancient Egypt. The lion-headed goddess Sekhmet is the most represented deity in most Egyptian collections worldwide. According to the myth, Osiris was a king of Egypt who was murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth. Whether or not Hecate's worship originated in Greece, some scholars have suggested that the name derives from a Greek root, and several potential source words have been identified. Sekhmet is believed to have 4000 names that described her many attributes. In the Argolid, near the shrine of the Dioscuri, Pausanias saw the temple of Hecate opposite the sanctuary of Eileithyia; He reported the image to be the work of Scopas, stating further, "This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon. Like many Egyptian gods, these divine beings started out as humans. However, there were distinct war gods (Ares), gods of strategy (Athena), and gods of death (Hades). Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden image is the work of Myron, and it has one face and one body. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favor according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Ishtar, Inanna, Persephone, Demeter, Hestia, Astarte, Isis, Kali, Tara, etc are some of the names that pop into the mind when we talk about esoteric goddesses. [80], Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity. Mason-Dixon Line [52] She is also sometimes associated with cypress, a tree symbolic of death and the underworld, and hence sacred to a number of chthonic deities. Roel Sterckx, Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. The main purpose of the Deipnon was to honour Hecate and to placate the souls in her wake who "longed for vengeance. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis. We have very little information about Sekhmet from historical sources available, at least to the general public. [45] Lions are associated with Hecate in early artwork from Asia Minor, as well as later coins and literature, including the Chaldean Oracles. Though such gifts varied in value and substance, it is nevertheless clear that the kings, chiefs, and Ollam of the Tuatha D Danann all drew their power . And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. However, have you ever come across a single deity, who is not the creator or primordial deity, and yet presides over opposing qualities? An Exciting Provocation: John F. Millers Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets. Vergilius (1959-) 58 (2012): Wycherley, R. (1970). Some think this deity is Athirat/Ashratu under her Ugaritic name. The cult of Sekhmet declined in the New Kingdom. Rohde, i. cult site in Lagina. [54] These include aconite (also called hecateis),[55] belladonna, dittany, and mandrake. Inscriptions of many of the statues declare that Sekhmet and Bastet are different aspects of Hathor. [3] Marcia Stark & Gynne Stern (1993) The Dark Goddess: Dancing with the Shadow, The Crossing Press, [4] Marcia Stark & Gynne Stern (1993) The Dark Goddess: Dancing with the Shadow, The Crossing Press. Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. As the holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms, she can unlock the gates of death, as described in a 3rd-century BCE poem by Theocritus. [59], This function would appear to have some relationship with the iconographic association of Hecate with keys, and might also relate to her appearance with two torches, which when positioned on either side of a gate or door illuminated the immediate area and allowed visitors to be identified. The crone symbolizes elderly women and the wisdom which comes with aging. (i. Different myths interchangeably call Sekhmet an angry manifestation of Hathor or Hathor and Bastet as docile manifestations of Sekhmet. [173] In Wicca, Hecate has in some cases become identified with the "crone" aspect of the "Triple Goddess".[174]. The Mistress and Lady of the tomb, gracious one, destroyer of rebellion, mighty one of enchantments, 7.
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