Hathor

Myth and origin

Hathor appears already in the Predynastic period (before 3100 BCE), with cow imagery on the Narmer Palette and elsewhere suggesting an extremely ancient cow-mother goddess. The Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) name her as the divine mother of the king, and her cult flourished continuously for over three thousand years until the temples were closed in the fourth century CE. Her name literally means "House (or temple) of Horus" (Hwt-Hrw), suggesting an original conception of her body as the womb-space within which the falcon-king is gestated and to which he eternally returns. She is sometimes depicted as the cow whose body is the sky, with stars on her belly and four legs at the cardinal directions—a cosmic vault interpreted as feminine.

Hathor's mythology overlaps significantly with that of Isis, Sekhmet, Bast, and other goddesses; "Hathor" becomes almost a generic title applied to many divine females. In the Book of the Heavenly Cow, it is sometimes Hathor (not Sekhmet) who is sent by Ra to slaughter rebellious humanity and must be appeased with red beer. As the "Distant Goddess" who flees Egypt for Nubia and must be coaxed back—a myth elaborated in late period texts and in the so-called "Myth of the Sun's Eye"—she represents the cyclical departure and return of life-giving female divine energy. Her festivals were among the most joyous in the Egyptian calendar, with dancing, drinking, and music marking her annual visits between her temple at Dendera and Horus's temple at Edfu.

Attributes and stories

You recognise Hathor by her cow ears or full cow head, the solar disk between cow horns crowning her head (an iconographic motif later borrowed by Isis), the sistrum (a sacred rattle used in her worship), the menat-necklace (a heavy beaded collar with counterweight, said to communicate her healing power when shaken), the lioness aspect she sometimes takes (her Sekhmet face), and the sycamore tree (her sacred plant, in whose foliage she appears to nourish the dead). Her hymns and ritual texts emphasise music as her preferred offering: "Songs are her food, the dance her drink."

Her great temple at Dendera, built primarily in the Ptolemaic period (c. 125 BCE-60 CE) on the site of much older sanctuaries, preserves the most elaborate Hathor iconography surviving from antiquity. The temple's columns are surmounted by Hathor-head capitals; the famous "Dendera Zodiac" (now in the Louvre) was carved on its ceiling around 50 BCE. The annual "Festival of the Beautiful Reunion" took her statue by river boat upstream to meet Horus at Edfu, a fourteen-day celebration of sacred marriage. Hathor was also revered as patroness of foreign trade—her temple at Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai (whose proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are foundational to the history of the alphabet) marked the turquoise and copper mines—and as "Lady of Punt" she received the famous expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to the land of incense. As receiver of the dead, she is the welcoming face of the western mountain, offering bread and water to souls passing into the afterlife.

Modern reception

Hathor has been embraced in modern goddess spirituality as a great life-affirming feminine divinity, complementing Isis's sorrowful magic with her exuberance and welcome. Normandi Ellis's Feasts of Light (1999) and many recent works in Kemetic spirituality place her centrally. Egyptological treatment includes Geraldine Pinch's Votive Offerings to Hathor (1993), Barbara Lesko's The Great Goddesses of Egypt (1999), and Carolyn Graves-Brown's Dancing for Hathor (2010). Jungian readings see her as the joyful and sensual aspect of the great mother archetype, balancing Demeter's mourning and Isis's magical sorrow. She has been linked, controversially, with the Aphrodite-Venus current in comparative studies of love-goddesses.

Astrologically, Hathor corresponds to Venus as the planet of love, beauty, art, and pleasure, and to the Moon in her maternal and nurturing aspect. She has affinities with Taurus (the cow-sign, ruled by Venus) and Libra. The asteroid 2340 Hathor (discovered 1976) bears her name. In contemporary spirituality she is invoked for love, fertility, artistic inspiration, joy in the body, healing through music and dance, and the welcoming of those who are dying. Modern dance and somatic traditions often draw on her iconography. The mythological deity test can reveal whether her current is presently flowing.

Symbolic depth

In the tarot, Hathor corresponds most clearly to The Empress (Arcanum III), the Venusian goddess of fertility, beauty, and abundance, and to The Lovers (VI). She also informs The Star (XVII) as the radiant feminine pouring out blessing, and Temperance (XIV) as the alchemist of joy. The Queen of Cups carries her loving warmth, the Ace of Cups her overflowing abundance. On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life she resonates with Netzach (Venus, Victory, the seat of natural love) and with Binah in her benevolent maternal face.

Symbolically, Hathor teaches that joy is sacred and that music, dance, beauty, and pleasure are paths of devotion, not distractions from it. Her cow-form reminds you that nourishment is generously given by the body itself—milk, warmth, presence. Her shadow is the goddess who can curdle into Sekhmet when the songs go unsung, when joy is repressed, when the festival is suppressed. Working with this archetype invites you to honour the embodied feminine in yourself and in your culture, to refuse the puritanical splitting of spirit and body, and to celebrate as a form of prayer. Continue with Isis, Sekhmet, and Aphrodite, or return to the main glossary.

Also known as

• Hwt-Hrw
• Lady of Dendera
• Mistress of the West
• Golden One
• Mehet-Weret