Neith the Creatress
Sep. 6th, 2012 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ikhet_sekhmetErik Hornung:
"Creation through the word is by no means associated with Ptah alone... the goddess Neith called the world into being through seven statements, which in a later magical text become the sevenfold laugh of the creator god. In the figure of Neith we confront a demiurge who represents more than a late, localized development... her close ties to the primeval cow Mehetweret link her with the early image of the celestial cow. If we consider Neith's important role in the Early Period, and her early incarnation as a beetle, we see that while she holds a central position in early cosmogonic conceptions, these are later eclipsed by others. The beetle Neith disappears, for instance, and gives way to the dung beetle of the sun god, the scarab Khepri."
Is this as unusual as I think it is - a female creator god who uses the abstract method of speech, rather than more concrete methods like birth or craft, to order the world?
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Hornung, Erik (trans. Elizabeth Bredeck). Idea into Image: Essays on Ancient Egyptian Thought. Timken Publishers, New York, 1992.
"Creation through the word is by no means associated with Ptah alone... the goddess Neith called the world into being through seven statements, which in a later magical text become the sevenfold laugh of the creator god. In the figure of Neith we confront a demiurge who represents more than a late, localized development... her close ties to the primeval cow Mehetweret link her with the early image of the celestial cow. If we consider Neith's important role in the Early Period, and her early incarnation as a beetle, we see that while she holds a central position in early cosmogonic conceptions, these are later eclipsed by others. The beetle Neith disappears, for instance, and gives way to the dung beetle of the sun god, the scarab Khepri."
Is this as unusual as I think it is - a female creator god who uses the abstract method of speech, rather than more concrete methods like birth or craft, to order the world?
__
Hornung, Erik (trans. Elizabeth Bredeck). Idea into Image: Essays on Ancient Egyptian Thought. Timken Publishers, New York, 1992.
