Hathor was frequently shown as a cow, a woman with a cow’s head, or a woman with a cow’s ears. It was thought that Hathor shielded women during childbirth because she represented motherhood and fertility. Because she was referred to as “the lady of the west,” she also had a significant funerary component. (On the western side of the Nile, tombs were typically constructed.) According to some customs, she would greet the sun as it set each night; similarly, the living hoped to be welcomed into the afterlife.
Goddess of love, music and the west
Hathor was one of the most loved goddesses of Egypt: patron of love, music, dance, drink and joy, and protector of women and of miners and foreign lands. She was also “Lady of the West”, who welcomed the dead into the necropolis on the west bank of the Nile. Her symbols are the cow, the sistrum and the menat necklace, and she wears a sun disc set between cow’s horns.
The Temple of Hathor at Dendera
Her finest surviving temple is at Dendera, north of Luxor. Built mainly in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, it keeps its roof, its blue astronomical ceilings and the chapels where a cast of the Dendera zodiac sits (the original is in the Louvre). Every year a statue of Hathor sailed upriver from Dendera to Edfu for the “Beautiful Reunion” with her husband Horus, a festival that lasted about two weeks. Dendera is visited together with Abydos on our Dendera and Abydos day trip from Luxor.
Other places to see Hathor
At Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahari on the Luxor West Bank, a chapel to Hathor has columns topped with her face and cow ears. At Abu Simbel, the smaller temple is dedicated to Hathor and Queen Nefertari, and Hathor-headed columns stand in its hall. Her face also crowns columns at Philae near Aswan.
Quick facts
- Domain: love, music, joy, motherhood, the necropolis
- Symbols: cow, sistrum, menat, sun disc between horns
- Cult centre: Dendera
- Related deities: Horus (husband), Re (father), Sekhmet and Bastet
Read about other deities in our guide to Egyptian gods.