Sekhmet and The Eye of Ra

     This post outlines the importance of the Egyptian symbol of Ra's eye and why it is seen as a powerful and important symbol of protection. The Eye of Ra was a symbol of protection because it symbolized Ra's female protectors. Almost all of Ra's female relatives are considered to be an Eye of Ra. Some goddesses who are said to be an Eye of Ra include: Sekhmet, Bastet, Hathor, Isis, Mut, Mehet-Weret, Tefnut, Serqet, Nekhbet, and Wadjet, to name a few. This story is the story that set this concept into Egyptian beliefs.

     As I mentioned in the previous post: Egyptian Mythology: Creation Story, Ra had started to become older and lazier, such that he began drooling. This was what allowed Isis to eventually get his secret name.

     Ra continued to rule Egypt and got older, lazier, and crazier over the years. But, he still refused to retire from his throne for Osiris. Due to the fact that he was getting crazier, people lost belief in his power and authority, and some humans began to plan a rebellion against him. Rumors of the rebellion reached the ears of Ra, who became enraged at this and the fact that he was getting weaker because people weren't worshiping him anymore. So, Ra went to Nun, and asked him for advice on what to do about it. Nun told Ra to take out his third eye, which Ra did. His third eye became a bloodthirsty lion-goddess named Sekhmet. He told Sekhmet to go and punish all the people who wished to overthrow him. Sekhmet gladly did this and killed tons and tons of humans. She also began to kill humans who never thought anything wrong about Ra. The other gods were totally freaked out about this and Ra told Sekhmet to stop. But, she didn't listen, since her blood lust was too strong to resist. So, Ra called all the gods and remaining humans together to make a really strong beer that looked and smelt like blood. The beer was brewed by Tenenet, the goddess of beer, brewing, and childbirth.

     They took this blood-beer and spread it all across the land. When Sekhmet saw this "blood", she drank it all of it. She then collapsed, too drunk to move, and slept for three days. While she slept, Ra then pulled out a huge portion of her essence and made two new goddesses: Bastet (Bast) and Hathor. Bastet was the goddess of cats, perfume, oil, fragrance, music, dance, protection, war, and pleasure. She is one reason why cats were considered extremely sacred in ancient Egypt. Hathor was the goddess of cows, rainbows, mother, wives, queens, women, joy, delight, and love. Hathor had a son named Apis, the bull god. Sekhmet woke up, but was no longer ferocious as she was before, because a huge chunk of her essence was gone and now she only killed cruel people for the purpose of protecting good people and her father Ra.

     Now, Sekhmet was finally calmed and became not just the goddess of vengeance, but also the goddess of healing. Sekhmet then moved more south to the city of Memphis. Here she married Ptah, the god of craftsmanship, and a form of Ra. Sekhmet touched Ptah's forehead with a blue lotus flower and they had a son named Nefertem, the god of beauty and makeup. She also had another son named Maahes, the lion-headed god of protection, war and weather. Apis became Ptah's herald and Ptah also married Bastet.

     Another version of the story states that to punish humans, Ra turned his third eye into Hathor, who then turned into Sekhmet and the rest of the story continues as before. In another version of the story, Hathor doesn't turn into Sekhmet and instead, makes Ra laugh by getting naked and dancing in front of him. Whenever Hathor wasn't with Ra, Ra became depressed, but when Hathor was with Ra, he would stop sulking.

     After Sekhmet's incident, Ra finally decided that it was probably best if he retired into the heavens and took his place as the sun. This paved the way for Shu, then Geb, and then Osiris to become king, and as we all know, that went "perfectly well". To know what I mean, read about Osiris' rule over Egypt and the most famous Egyptian story in Egyptian Mythology: Osiris Myth: Osiris and Isis and Egyptian Mythology: Osiris Myth: Horus and Set

(pic credit link)