Hathorحتحور

Hathor presided over the happiest sides of life: love, beauty, music, dance, and festivity. She was the patroness of women and the goddess of romance and motherhood, and her joyful festivals filled the temples with song, dancing, and celebration. Where other deities ruled over death and judgement, Hathor stood for the sheer pleasure and tenderness of living — which made her one of the most popular and warmly loved goddesses among ordinary Egyptians.

Hathor was often depicted as a cow, or as a woman wearing cow's horns cradling a sun disk — an image of nurturing, motherly love. As a great mother goddess, she was believed to suckle and protect the pharaoh, and even the gods. She was also a sky goddess, sometimes imagined as a great celestial cow whose body formed the heavens. In all these forms, she embodied protection, nourishment, and care, watching tenderly over the living and welcoming the dead in the west.

Hathor's sacred instrument was the sistrum, a musical rattle shaken in her honour, and her magnificent temple at Dendera is one of the best-preserved in Egypt. At Abu Simbel, Ramses II dedicated the smaller temple to Hathor and his queen Nefertari. Yet Hathor also had a fierce side: in myth she was linked to the raging "Eye of Ra" and the lioness Sekhmet, who nearly destroyed humankind before being calmed — a reminder that even the gentlest of goddesses held great power.

• Who she is: goddess of love, music, joy, beauty, and motherhood.
• Arabic name: حتحور (Hathor); called "the Golden One."
• Shown as: a cow, or a woman with cow's horns and a sun disk.
• Patroness of: women, love, music, dance, and celebration.
• Sacred instrument: the sistrum; her great temple is at Dendera.
• Other side: linked to the fierce "Eye of Ra"; honoured at Abu Simbel.

Sources include standard works on ancient Egyptian religion and mythology.