Seshat
Encyclopedia
In Egyptian mythology
, Seshat (also spelled Safkhet, Sesat, Seshet, Sesheta, and Seshata) was the Ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom
, knowledge
, and writing
. She was seen as a scribe
and record keeper
, and her name means she who scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of architecture
, astronomy
, astrology
, building
, mathematics
, and surveying
. These are all professions that relied upon expertise in her skills. She is identified as Safekh-Aubi in some late texts.
Mistress of the House of Books is another title for Seshat, being the deity whose priests oversaw the library
in which scrolls of the most important knowledge were assembled and spells were preserved. One prince of the fourth dynasty
, Wep-em-nefret, is noted as the Overseer of the Royal Scribes, Priest of Seshat on a slab stela
. Heliopolis
was the location of her principal sanctuary. She is described as the goddess of history.
In art
, she was depicted as a woman with a seven-pointed emblem above her head. It is unclear what this emblem represents. Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BCE) called her Sefket-Abwy (She of seven points). Spell 10 of the Coffin Texts
states "Seshat opens the door of heaven for you."
Usually, she is shown holding a palm stem, bearing notch
es to denote the recording
of the passage of time
, especially for keeping track of the allotment of time for the life of the pharaoh. She was also depicted holding other tools and, often, holding the knotted cord
s that were stretched to survey land and structures.
She is frequently shown dressed in a cheetah
or leopard
hide
, a symbol of funerary priest
s. If not shown with the hide over a dress, the pattern of the dress is that of the spotted feline. The pattern on the natural hide was thought to represent the star
s, being a symbol of eternity
, and to be associated with the night sky.
As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh
in both of these practices. It was she who recorded, by notching her palm, the time allotted to the pharaoh for his stay on earth.
Seshat assisted the pharaoh in the "stretching the cord
" ritual. This ritual is related to laying out the foundations of temples and other important structures in order to determine and assure the sacred alignments and the precision of the dimensions. Her skills were necessary for surveying the land after the annual floods to reestablish boundary lines. The priestess who officiated at these functions in her name also oversaw the staff of others who performed similar duties and were trained in mathematics and the related store of knowledge. Much of this knowledge was considered quite sacred and not shared beyond the ranks of the highest professionals such as architects and certain scribes. She also was responsible for recording the speeches the pharaoh made during the crowning ceremony and approving the inventory of foreign captives and goods gained in military campaigns. During the New Kingdom
, she was involved in the Sed festival
held by the pharaohs who could celebrate thirty years of reign.
Later, when the cult of the moon deity, Thoth
, became prominent and he became identified as a god of wisdom, the role of Seshat changed in the Egyptian pantheon
when counterparts were created for most older deities. The lower ranks of her priest
esses were displaced by the priests of Thoth. First, she was identified as his daughter, and later as his wife. However, as late as the eighteenth dynasty, in a temple constructed during the reign of Hatshepsut
, there is an image of the pharaoh directing Thoth to obtain answers to important questions from Seshat. After the pairing with Thoth the stylised papyrus of Seshat was shown surmounted by a crescent moon
, which, over time, degenerated into being shown as two horns
arranged to form a crescent shape, but pointing downward (in an atypical fashion for Egyptian art). When the crescent moon symbol had degenerated into the horns, she sometimes was known as Safekh-Aubi, meaning she who wears the two horns. In a few images the horns resemble two cobras, as depicted in hieroglyphs
, but facing each other with heads touching.
Egyptian mythology
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
, Seshat (also spelled Safkhet, Sesat, Seshet, Sesheta, and Seshata) was the Ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
, knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
, and writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
. She was seen as a scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
and record keeper
Accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...
, and her name means she who scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, building
Building
In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, and surveying
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
. These are all professions that relied upon expertise in her skills. She is identified as Safekh-Aubi in some late texts.
Mistress of the House of Books is another title for Seshat, being the deity whose priests oversaw the library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
in which scrolls of the most important knowledge were assembled and spells were preserved. One prince of the fourth dynasty
Fourth dynasty of Egypt
The fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom. Dynasty IV lasted from ca. 2613 to 2494 BC...
, Wep-em-nefret, is noted as the Overseer of the Royal Scribes, Priest of Seshat on a slab stela
Slab stela
The slab stela was an original form of the steles of ancient Egypt, but in a horizontal dimension. Some of the earliest ones from mid- to late-3rd millennium BC were painted Slab Steles...
. Heliopolis
Heliopolis (ancient)
Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, the capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian nome that was located five miles east of the Nile to the north of the apex of the Nile Delta...
was the location of her principal sanctuary. She is described as the goddess of history.
In art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, she was depicted as a woman with a seven-pointed emblem above her head. It is unclear what this emblem represents. Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BCE) called her Sefket-Abwy (She of seven points). Spell 10 of the Coffin Texts
Coffin Texts
The Coffin Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. The texts are derived in part from the earlier pyramid texts, reserved for royal use only, but they contain substantial new material related to everyday desires that...
states "Seshat opens the door of heaven for you."
Usually, she is shown holding a palm stem, bearing notch
Notch
Notch may refer to:* The nock of an arrow* Notch , a Hip hop, R&B, reggae, dancehall and reggaeton artist* Notch signaling pathway, a cell signaling system present in most multicellular organisms...
es to denote the recording
Chronology
Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...
of the passage of time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, especially for keeping track of the allotment of time for the life of the pharaoh. She was also depicted holding other tools and, often, holding the knotted cord
Knotted cord
A knotted cord was a primitive surveyor's tool for measuring distances. It is literally a length of cord with knots at regular intervals. They were eventually replaced by surveyor's chains, which being made of metal were less prone to stretching and thus were more accurate and consistent.Knotted...
s that were stretched to survey land and structures.
She is frequently shown dressed in a cheetah
Cheetah
The cheetah is a large-sized feline inhabiting most of Africa and parts of the Middle East. The cheetah is the only extant member of the genus Acinonyx, most notable for modifications in the species' paws...
or leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
hide
Hides
A hide is an animal skin treated for human use. Hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, alligator skins, snake skins for shoes and fashion accessories and furs from wild cats, mink and bears. In some areas, leather is produced on a domestic or small industrial scale, but most...
, a symbol of funerary priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s. If not shown with the hide over a dress, the pattern of the dress is that of the spotted feline. The pattern on the natural hide was thought to represent the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s, being a symbol of eternity
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...
, and to be associated with the night sky.
As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
in both of these practices. It was she who recorded, by notching her palm, the time allotted to the pharaoh for his stay on earth.
Seshat assisted the pharaoh in the "stretching the cord
Rope stretcher
In ancient Egypt rope stretchers were surveyors who measured property demarcations and foundations using knotted cords which they stretched in order to take the sag out of the rope. When performed by kings during the initial stage of temple building the Stretching of the Rope was probably a...
" ritual. This ritual is related to laying out the foundations of temples and other important structures in order to determine and assure the sacred alignments and the precision of the dimensions. Her skills were necessary for surveying the land after the annual floods to reestablish boundary lines. The priestess who officiated at these functions in her name also oversaw the staff of others who performed similar duties and were trained in mathematics and the related store of knowledge. Much of this knowledge was considered quite sacred and not shared beyond the ranks of the highest professionals such as architects and certain scribes. She also was responsible for recording the speeches the pharaoh made during the crowning ceremony and approving the inventory of foreign captives and goods gained in military campaigns. During the New Kingdom
New Kingdom
The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt....
, she was involved in the Sed festival
Sed festival
The Sed festival was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh...
held by the pharaohs who could celebrate thirty years of reign.
Later, when the cult of the moon deity, Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...
, became prominent and he became identified as a god of wisdom, the role of Seshat changed in the Egyptian pantheon
Egyptian pantheon
The Egyptian pantheon consisted of the many gods worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians. A number of major deities are addressed as the creator of the cosmos. These include Atum, Ra, Amun and Ptah amongst others, as well as composite forms of these gods such as Amun-Ra. This was not seen as...
when counterparts were created for most older deities. The lower ranks of her priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
esses were displaced by the priests of Thoth. First, she was identified as his daughter, and later as his wife. However, as late as the eighteenth dynasty, in a temple constructed during the reign of Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...
, there is an image of the pharaoh directing Thoth to obtain answers to important questions from Seshat. After the pairing with Thoth the stylised papyrus of Seshat was shown surmounted by a crescent moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, which, over time, degenerated into being shown as two horns
Horn (anatomy)
A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae...
arranged to form a crescent shape, but pointing downward (in an atypical fashion for Egyptian art). When the crescent moon symbol had degenerated into the horns, she sometimes was known as Safekh-Aubi, meaning she who wears the two horns. In a few images the horns resemble two cobras, as depicted in hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
, but facing each other with heads touching.