Meskhenet

Meskhenet
Meskhenet
	Meskhenet as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus (Peseshkef) on her head
Symbol	Cow's uterus

In ancient

soul

, which she breathed into them at the moment of birth. She was worshipped from the earliest of times by Egyptians.

In mythology

In ancient Egypt, women delivered babies while squatting on a pair of bricks, known as "birth bricks", and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery. Consequently, in art, she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's uterus upon it. At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus on her headdress.^[1]

Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate. Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with Shai, who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.^[1]

Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the

Fifth Dynasty, who in the story are said to be triplets. Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.^[2]

Gallery

Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick
Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in Weighing of the Heart in the Papyrus of Ani
Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in a Weighing of the Heart scene painted on a coffin
Meskhenet as a birth brick depicted above the scales in a Weighing of the Heart scene in Ptolemaic temple at Deir el-Medina