Mehit

Mehit
Mehit
	Relief depicting Mehit, dated to the reign of Ptolemy II and now at Walters Art Museum.
Major cult center	Nekhen ; Thinis
Personal information
Spouse	Anhur

Mehit
in hieroglyphs

Mehit (also Mehyt) was an ancient Egyptian and Nubian lion goddess of Nubian origin.

History

In the

Hierakonpolis and Thinis.^[2]

Beliefs

Mehit was the consort of

Shu and Mehit with Hathor-Tefnut, Shu's mythological sister and wife. Because Shu and Tefnut sometimes represented the sun and moon, Mehit could also represent the full moon. Her return to her proper place could thus represent the restoration of the Eye of Horus, a symbol of the moon and of the divine order of the cosmos.^[3]

Geraldine Pinch suggests that the Distant Goddess may have originally been a personification of the wild deserts of Nubia, whose myth was absorbed into a complex of myths surrounding the Eye of Ra.^[3] Toby Wilkinson says that in Early Dynastic times she may have been a protector goddess, associated with holy places.^[1]

References

^
ISBN 0415260116
, p. 290

^ Emery, W.B. (1961) Archaic Egypt, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 125
^ ^a ^b Pinch, Geraldine (2004). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–73, 177

[wilkinson-1] 
ISBN 0415260116
, p. 290

[2] Emery, W.B. (1961) Archaic Egypt, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 125

[pinch-3] Pinch, Geraldine (2004). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–73, 177

[2]

[3]

[1]