Susan Tower Hollis - Five Egyptian Goddesses: Their Possible Beginnings, Actions, and Relationships in the Third Millennium BCE

Bloomsbury Egyptology

Series editor: Nicholas Reeves

Ancient Egyptian Technology and Innovation, Ian Shaw

Ancient Egyptians at Play, Walter Crist, Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi, and Alex de Voogt

Archaeologists, Tourists, Interpreters, Rachel Mairs and Maya Muratov

Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt, Phyllis Saretta

Burial Customs in Ancient Egypt, Wolfram Grajetzki

Court Officials of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, Wolfram Grajetzki

The Egyptian Oracle Project, edited by Robyn Gillam and Jeffrey Jacobson

Foreigners in Ancient Egypt, Flora Brooke Anthony

Hidden Hands, Stephen Quirke

The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Wolfram Grajetzki

Performance and Drama in Ancient Egypt, Robyn Gillam

The Unknown Tutankhamun, Marianne Eaton-Krauss

With much appreciation and thanks to my long-time mentor and dear friend, Wolfgang Schwarz, Ph.D., who sadly did not live to see this work come to fruition.

Map of ancient Egypt with major locations for fourth and third millennia BCE . Courtesy of Richard Bussmann.

Predynastic Period (c. 55003100 BCE ) Neolithic

Badarian, Naqada I, Naqada II

Dynasty 0 (c. 31002950 BCE ): Iry-Hor, Scorpion, others

Early Dynastic Period

1st Dynasty (c. 29502775 BCE ): Narmer, Aha, Djer, Den, Adj-ib, Semer-khet, Qa-a

2nd Dynasty (c. 27752650 BCE ): Hetep-Sekhemwy, Neb-Ra, Ny-Netjer, Peribsen, Sekhem-ib, Sened, Nemtyemzaef II

Old Kingdom

3rd Dynasty (c. 26502575 BCE ): Djoser, Sekhem-khet, Khabam Nebka, Huni

4th Dynasty (c. 25752450 BCE ): Snefru, Khufu, Radjedef, Bikheris, Khephren, Menkaure, Shepseskaf

5th Dynasty (c. 24502325 BCE ): Userkhaf, Sahure, Raneferef, Shepseskhare, Niuserre, Menkauhor, Izesi, Wenis/Unit

6th Dynasty (c. 23252175 BCE ): Teti, Pepi I, Merenre, Pepi II,

7th8th Dynasties (c. 21752125 BCE )

First Intermediate Period (9thpart of the 11th Dynasties) (c. 21251986 BCE )

9th10th Dynasties (c. 21251975 BCE ) Herakleopolitan

11th Dynasty (c. 20801975 BCE ) Theban

Middle Kingdom

11th Dynasty (c. 19751940 BCE ) all Egypt

12th Dynasty (c. 19401755 BCE )

13th Dynasty (c. 17551630 BCE )

14th Dynasty (contemporaneous with the 13th?)

Second Intermediate Period (15th17th Dynasties) (c. 16301540 BCE )

15th Dynasty (c. 16301540 BCE ) Hyksos

16th Dynasty (c. 16301540 BCE ) minor Hyksos

17th Dynasty (c. 16301540 BCE ) Theban

New Kingdom

18th Dynasty (c. 15391295 BCE )

19th Dynasty (c. 12951186 BCE )

20th Dynasty (c. 11861069 BCE )

Third Intermediate Period: 21st25th Dynasties (c. 1069657 BCE )

Late Period: 26th31st Dynasties (664332 BCE )

Graeco-Roman Period (332 BCE to 395 CE )

Alexander III, the Great (332323 BCE )

This book would not have happened without the suggestion from Dr. Robyn Gillam, my good friend and colleague, that I contact Dr. Nicholas Reeves at the Duckworth Press about publishing it and his enthusiastic acceptance of my proposal. Its content comes from various papers I have presented over the last more than three decades, beginning with a challenge to present the relatively strong place and roles of women in ancient Egypt in comparison with contemporary cultures as possibly deriving from the sky goddess Nut at the Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society held in Baltimore in 1986. Other venues for presentations have included Annual Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion; the Egyptological Society of New York; the Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists; the Fifth Meeting of Egypt at Its Origins; the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities; and of course several of the Annual Meetings of the American Research Center in Egypt. Naturally I also shared my work with my colleagues and students at the State University of New York, Empire State College (ESC), where I taught for over twenty years, notably as the recipient of the Susan H. Turban Award for Excellence in Scholarship with its annual college-wide lecture and as the Scholar Across the College during which I presented my work in all seven college centers across the state of New York. The give-and-take questions and answers that occurred during all these opportunities helped to develop my thinking about these deities.

I have benefitted greatly from the help of the Interlibrary Loan librarians at ESC and their collaboration with their colleagues at SUNY Buffalo from whom I requested and received countless articles and related books, some even purchased to meet my requests. Most particularly, ESC librarian Sarah Morehouse has patiently responded to my many questions over time about copyright issues. Additional help came from Philip B. Payne of Linguists Software, Inc., who assisted me with a transliteration program to help with the writing of this volume.

Along the way, many additional people have assisted me in putting this book together, most notably in gaining permissions to use various figures and illustrations from this ancient culture which was steeped in visual representationsand many more than are here could have been included. A few of these people I know personally, but the vast majority assisted me simply because I asked, not because we had ever met. Individuals and museum and organization representatives are among those who assisted me, either by providing permissions because they actually hold the copyright; referring me elsewhere to put me in touch with the appropriate person, institution, or organization; or even helping me when in the end our work could not succeed. Among the individuals who have assisted meeither by granting me the use of figures for which they are responsible or pointing me in the right direction to get the figures or information I neededare Stan Hendrickx, Media, Arts, and Design Faculty at Hasselt in Belgium; Wouter Claes, Royal Museums of Art and History, Department of Antiquities, in Brussels; Naguib Kanawati, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Ulrich Hartung, German Archaeological Institute, Cairo; Rene Friedman, Director, Hierakonpolis Expedition and Griffith Institute, University of Oxford; Richard Bussmann, University of Kln; Daniela Rosenow, German Archaeological Institute, Cairo; Bridgett Badelt, Permissions, Franz Steiner Verlag; Magdy Ali, Theban Mapping Project, American University in Cairo; Francis Dzikowski, photographer, Theban Mapping Project; and Stephanie Boonstra, Egyptian Exploration Society.