brand . pr nefrt Egypt raw. copper size. 10 5 inches Hathor Hathor (Ancient Egyptian: ?wt-r "House of Horus", Greek: ???? Hath?r) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a variety of roles. As a goddess of heaven, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both connected with royalty, and therefore she was the symbolic mother of her earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several deities who played the role of the Eye of Ra, the female counterpart of Ra, and as such had a vengeful side, protecting him from his enemies. Her benevolent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sex, and maternal care, and she served as the wife of many male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess are an example of the Egyptian concept of femininity. Hathor crossed the boundaries between the realms, and helped the souls of the dead to move to the afterlife. Hathor A glimpse of a woman in ancient Egyptian clothes. She has yellow skin and carries on her head a pair of cow horns, between them a red disc surrounded by a cobra. She holds a forked stick in one hand and an ankh sign in the other. Composite image of the most common icons of Hathor, based in part on images from the tomb of Nefertari Dendera major worship center, Memphis fathers ra Consort Ra, Horus, Atum, Amun, Khonsu The offspring of the child of Horus, eh, Neferhotep Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her motherly and heavenly side, although her most common image was of a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. It can also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree. Cattle deities similar to Hathor were depicted in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but may not have appeared until the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC). Under the patronage of the rulers of the ancient state she became one of the most important deities in Egypt. More temples were dedicated to her than any other deities. Its most prominent temples were Dendera in Upper Egypt. She was also worshiped in the temples of her male companions. The Egyptians had contact with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their precious commodities, such as incense and semi-stones, and some peoples in those lands adopted their worship. In Egypt, she was one of the deities who were usually invoked in private prayers and votive offerings, especially by women wishing to have children.