|
Ancient Egyptian deities: Bat
Printout
For best results save the whole webpage (pictures included) onto your hard disk, open the page with Word 97 or higher, edit if necessary and print. Printing using the browser's print function is not recommended. |
 |
Bat
 [1] was an ancient bovine goddess who, in the course of history, merged with Hathor and lost her individual identity, a process which may have begun as early as the Old Kingdom, as in the Pyramidtexts Hathor is described with bovine features probably inherited from Bat,[2] and was completed by the New Kingdom.[3] She is considered to have been a goddess of the sky, her four legs being the pillars holding up the heavens, her belly the firmament studded with stars.[4]
Bat may have played a role in the mythological unification of Egypt.[5] She is apparently displayed on the Narmer Palette, which is thought to commemorate the Upper Egyptian king Narmer's conquest of Lower Egypt, or on a Middle Kingdom pectoral, where she is shown flanked by Seth and Horus, who had been fighting over the rule of Egypt.[6]
The Narmer Palette with two depictions of a cow goddess, probably Bat with her two faces She is first mentioned by name in the Pyramidtexts: Meryre is Bat with her two facesThe two faces mentioned may refer to the fact that sistra bore a double image of the goddess's face. Whether a 1st dynasty assembly of a jabiru-stork and a vase bearing the picture of a human face with cow ears and horns should be considered an even earlier hieroglyphic construction of the word bA.t is debatable.[9] Worship
Bat was the goddess of the 7th nome of Upper Egypt, whose sign was a sistrum, and her cult centre bore the name of Manson of the Sistrum,[6] Hwt zSS.t, just as the cult centre of Hathor at Dendera in the 6th nome came to be known.[10] Locally she was of some importance until the Middle Kingdom, later her cults and attributes were taken over by Hathor and the name Bat became an epithet of that goddess.
Footnotes:
[1] MdC transliteration bA.t, Wb 1, 412.11 probably simply the female form of bA, therefore at times rendered as 'Feminine Power' or 'Feminine Spirit'. (Lesko 1999, p.81) [2] Lesko 1999, p.82 [3] Lesko 1999, p.267 [4] Lesko 1999, p.23 [5] Hart 2005, p.48 [6] Wilkinson 2003, p.172 [7] Lesko 1999, p.17 [8] Allen & der Manuelian 2003, p.166 [9] Michael Brass, "Origins of the Egyptian Cattle Cult" in Eyma & Bennett 2003, p.107 [10] Wb 3, 487.5-6 Bibliography: Allen & der Manuelian 2003 A. K. Eyma, C. J. Bennett (eds.), A Delta-man in Yebu, Universal-Publishers, 2003 Hart 2005 Lesko 1999 Wilkinson 2003 Other cow goddesses: Hathor, Hesat, Mehet-uret, Nut |
|
|
Bat with her nome standard on her head on the left of Menkaure, on his right Hathor