Property of Sekhmet

The aegis depicts a deity's head above "a broad wsḫ-collar". "...aegides are connected with the cults of Amun, Mut, Khons, Hathor, Isis, Sekhmet, Bastet, Anukis, Sobek, and other gods". They appear just as the collar, as the collar with a menat attached, and as collar plus menat plus the god's hands. They had multiple functions: "sacred barques, dance accessories, heads of ritual staffs and divine standards, cult images, amulets, and votive offerings".

The first representations of aegides (on the prow and stern of Amun's sacred barque) are found in Hatshepsut's Red Chapel in Karnak, but an earlier fragment suggests Amun's barque already bore his aegis in the Middle Kingdom. The barques of Mut and Khonsu had their own aegides. In Hatshepsut's time, a real wsḫ-collar decorated Amun's head. Barques were the first use of the aegis; it began to appear attached to the menat in Hathor's cult during the Eighteenth Dynasty. The version with the god's arms has a "special status" in the Third Intermediate Period.

As amulets of Sekhmet, Mut, Hathor, Isis, and Amun, aegides were used in jewellery, and were found outside Egypt in Palestine, Samos, Cyprus, and Meroe.

"We really know nothing of the ritual in which aegides were used or their role in the cults of Egyptian gods." Egad.

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Ivanov, Sergei. "The Aegis in Ancient Egyptian Art: Aspects of Interpretation". In Zahi Hawass (ed). Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000. Cairo ; New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2003.

I couldn't remember for the life of me why I'd borrowed this, so I just went through the index looking for interesting stuff. What an appalling thing to do with a book. Anyway:

The Hermopolitan Ogdoad (p 49): "Nun and Naunet, the primordial water; Heh and Hauhet, infinity in its spatial form; Kek and Kauket, darkness; and Amun and Amaunet, the hidden; this last pair being later replaced by Niau and Niaut, who symbolize the void." I wonder if that substitution represents a promotion for Amun to obscure snake in the lake to Creator. "Amaunet received a cult at Thebes from Dynasty 18 on" (p 26)

Re, in an unpublished papyrus at the Turin Museum (p 47): "When I manifested myself, manifestations manifested themselves. I had manifested myself as a manifestation of the existing: I manifested myself and manifestations manifested themselves, for I acted prior to the anterior gods I had created. If I acted priorly among the anterior ones, it was that my name existed prior to theirs, if I created anterior time and the anterior gods, it was to create all that is desirable on this earth." That's a lot of khepers.

"The two gods who were lords of the [Kom Ombo] temple each had his own divine 'family', made up of a mother goddess and a child god: to the triad Sobek-Hathor-Khons corresponded the triad Haroeris-Tasenetnefret ('the Good Sister')-Panebtawy ('the Lord of the Two Lands')... The theological system of Kom Ombo is extremely complex... [its myths] present original doctrines that constitute the specific 'theology' of the temple, in which two themes, one universalist and the other local, are juxtaposed to and combined with one another.' (p 228-9) And naturally the bloody reference is in French: A. Gutbub, Textes fondamentauz de la theéologie de Kom Ombo (Cairo, 1973).

The Nubian deity Aresnuphis had a temple at Philae. (p 229)

"The foreign deities - Reshep, Baal, Anat, Astarte, and Qadesh - all had a human figure that the Egyptians assigned to them. Without doubt, they would have found it difficult to slip into animal or composite form, for these stem from the deep structure of the Egyptian concept of the divine." (p 18-19) But the Canaanite god Haurun was falcon-headed, and then "he was identified totally with the sun god he had become in the New Kingdom: Hamarkhis, the Great Sphinx of Giza." As Haurun-Hamarkhis, he was represented as the sphinx. (p 19) Sopdu was also a foreigner who "kept watch over the east of the land both inside and outside the frontier of Egypt". (p 18) Plus in Ptolemaic times there was "the divine Thracian horseman Heron", worshipped in Faiyum villages "whose populations included a large contingent of... former soldiers settled on land granted to them by the crown." (p 246) Other foreign gods worshipped in Egypt included Bendis (Thracian), Mithra (Persian), and Kybele and Attis. (p 276)

"... the bestiary present in the divine iconography was extremely coherent. It did not include animals that could live in Egypt at a remote point in time (giraffe, rhinoceros, elephant) but left because of climate change well before the period of historical, political, and religious formation, nor did it include those introduced at a much later time, such as the horse. More precisely put, while the horse played a role, it was in direct relation to foreign deities such as Anat and Astarte, who entered the native pantheon in the New Kingdom." (p 17)

Astarte and Reshep were introduced during the NK. "Astarte in particular, with the epithet 'daughter of Ptah', had her own temple at Memphis, the temple of the 'foreign Aphrodite' mentioned by Herodotus.' (p 276)

At Esna, Khnum is called "father of fathers, mother of mothers", and "associated with several goddesses, in particular Neith, the very ancient goddess of Sais, who at Esna was also a creative power and bisexual. Heqa, their divine child, received a cult in the mammisi... At Esna, the theme of creation is quite important and includes the 'raising of the sky', the modelling of humanity by the potter god, and the formation of the world by means of the 'seven creative words' of Neith." (p 227) Once again the reference (Sauneron) is en Fraçais. Zut!

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Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche. Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2004.

In his article on Neith, C.J. Bleeker discusses a reference to the goddess and her temple in Plutarch's Isis and Osiris: "In Saïs the statue of Athena, whom they believe to be Isis, bore the inscription: 'I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered.'" Bleeker points out that Neith is the goddess of weaving, and that the last part of the inscription would be better rendered: "no mortal has ever unriddled my web" - that is, "nobody has ever guessed the nature of the goddess Neith".

Sadly, all Neith's temples are now lost, with the exception of Esna. She was probably worshipped since prehistoric times, with Saïs the centre of her cult. Bleeker remarks that "the cult of Neith flourished in several periods which are far apart" - the earliest pharaohs, the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty (the Saïtes), and Ptolemaic times.

Bleeker gives a handy list of the gods worshipped at Esna; Khnum, his consorts Nebtu and Menhyt, and his son Heqa; Neith and her sons Tutu and Shema Nefer; and Osiris and Isis. Bleeker emphases the equality of the temples' chief deities, Khnum and Neith, who divided it between them (Neith had the northern part); both were identified with Tatanen (and Neith with Renenutet). He also points out that Neith has children but no consort, as befits an androgynous creatrix.

Discussing Neith's association with weaponry, Bleeker suggests her symbol "represents a case in which two bows are kept", and speculates that the female ka symbol, two crossed arrows in front of a shield, could represent her protection of women. Her arrows could hold off demons. Her bow was carried in ritual procession; another ceremony involved arrows being shot in the four cardinal directions, symbolising her universal victory.

Neith appears in the Am Duat, generally wearing the red crown but without weapons, in the fourth, tenth, and eleventh hours. In the latter, she's shown with four forms (the first two with the white crown): Neith the child, Neith the queen of Upper Egypt, Neith the queen of Lower Egypt, and "Neith fecondée" - Neith the pregnant!

"As Neith also acts as mother of Sebek... it is not surprising that she is represented suckling two crocodiles." Man! I have to find a picture of that. ETA: Ermagherd! (Shades of the Mesopotamia lamashtu, shown suckling a dog and a pig. Also like the antimatter version of Horus on the crocodiles.)

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C.J. Bleeker. "The Egyptian Goddess Neith". in The Rainbow: a collection of studies in the science of religion (Studies in the history of religions 30). Leiden: Brill, 1975.