She Who Is Powerful - Eye of Ra

Goddess of divine retribution, vengeance, conquest and war.

Sekhmet is usually portrayed as a woman with the head of a lioness. Sometimes the linen dress she wears exhibits a rosetta pattern over each nipple, an ancient leonine motif that can be traced to observation of the shoulder-knot hairs on lions. She is daughter of the sun-god Ra.

Sekhmet is the triad goddess of Memphis with her husband Ptah, god of arts and crafts. Nefertum was their son and the third member of the triad. Ptah is the creative potter-god who shaped the world and heavens assisted by the seven wise worker-dwarfs of Khnemu.

Sekhmet is one of the oldest known forms of Neteru in Egyptian record.Egyptian lion goddess worshipped at Memphis as the consort of Ptah, and with shrines throughout Egypt. She was regarded as a manifestation of the Eye of Re, and acted as a destroyer of mankind. She represented the harmful powers of the sun. She was known as the Lady of the Messengers of Death. Associated with pestilence, she also became the patron goddess of healing, and her priests became doctors.

She the 'patron' of the Physicians, Physician-Priests and Healers. Because She is one of the most powerful of all the Gods of Netjer. Her name literally translated means "Mighty One", or "Powerful One". Her name is derived from the Egyptian word 'Sekhem', which means "power" or "might". The word Sekhem' is literally inseperable from Sekhmet and Her worship. Because of her power - she is often misunderstood and portrayed only in a negative way. This is probably because of legends of how Sekhmet, as the destructive Eye of Ra was sent forth to punish humanity for its mockery of Her Father, Ra.

It was said that her breath created the desert. Sekhmet was seen as the more vicious of the two war goddesses, the other, Bast, being the war goddess of Lower Egypt. Consequently, it was Sekhmet who was seen as the Avenger of Wrongs, and Scarlet Lady, a reference to blood. As the one with bloodlust, she was also seen as ruling over menstruation.

Her name suits her function, and means (one who is) powerful, and she was also given titles such as (One) Before Whom Evil Trembles, and Lady of Slaughter. Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying his enemies with arrows of fire, her body being said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title Lady of Flame. Indeed it was said that death and destruction were balsam for her heart, and hot desert winds were believed to be her breath.

In order to placate Sekhmet's wrath, her priesthood felt compelled to perform a ritual before a different statue of her on each day of the year, leading to it being estimated that over seven hundred statues of Sekhmet once stood in the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, on the west bank of the Nile. It was said that her priests protected her statues from theft or vandalism by coating them with anthrax, and so Sekhmet was also seen as a bringer of disease, to be prayed to so as to cure such ills by placating her. The name "Sekhmet" literally became synonymous with doctors and surgeons during the Middle Kingdom. In antiquity, many of Sekhmet's priests were often considered to be on the same level as physicians.