Sekhmet, the Powerful One, quenched her blood lust with 7000 barrels of red beer.
The Powerful One, Sekhmet, is a lion-headed warrior goddess whose breath created the desert. Sometimes seen as an aspect of Hathor, the cow-headed fertility goddess, Sekhmet’s name means power, strength.
When he got disgusted with the slack ways of humanity, Ra sends Sekhmet as the Eye of Ra to destroy those who were not living in balance. Although he called an end to her destruction, Sekhmet’s blood-lust was not quelled at the end of battle, which led to her destroying almost all of humanity. Ra poured out seven thousand barrels of beer dyed red with pomegranate juice to resemble blood. Mistaking the beer for blood, the goddess became so drunk that she gave up the slaughter and returned peacefully, making her by far the first and most fearful party animal.
In addition to her fierceness (she was literally called the “holy terror”), she had magical healing powers, and was the patroness of physicians and healers as “the lady of life.” She is mentioned as both a creative and destructive force in the Book of the Dead. She was also the protector of Ma’at, the goddess and concept of balance and justice, she who weighed the soul of a dead person against her feather.
Sources
When I was in college I did some reading on Mythology and Egyptian Mythology was one of my favorite.. but it was so detailed, and so much history involved, I don’t think I learned much of anything. What I did walk away with, (I walked away with lots of things) was that if I have a son I want to name him Ra… in addition to the meaning of the name, I really want to be able to say, “RAAAAAAA get down here right now!” or “Raaaaaa stop” or “Raaaa that had me rolling on the floor”… LOL It would be for my amusement for sure.
Thanks for profiling Sekhmet today… don’t think I’ve read up on her before. How is this going to tie into the stories you’re writing? Curious 🙂
Have a great Saturday,
Tamala
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than having things based on sevens for this month’s UBC. My agent wants me to do a book about goddesses, and I’m exploring what would be beneficital for writers. I use Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s book 45 Master Characters, which are aligned with Greek myth archetypes in some of my writing. There are many more stories outside the Greeks…4000 years of them in ancient Egypt.
I enjoyed reading this, I did not know some of this info, I find Mythology intresting but never really read up on it!
The main thing you get from myths is that people don’t change. The stories from mythology could be put in modern times and would still work, with a few detail changes, of course.