{{short description|Egyptian goddess of childbirth}} {{Infobox deity | type = Egyptian | name = Meskhenet | image = Meskhenet standing.svg | caption = Meskhenet as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus (Peseshkef) on her head | hiero = <hiero>ms-s-x-n:t-B1</hiero> | cult_center = | symbol = Cow's uterus }} In ancient Egyptian mythology, '''Meskhenet''', (also spelt '''Mesenet''', '''Meskhent''', and '''Meshkent''') was the goddess of childbirth, and the creator of each child's Ka, a part of their soul, which she breathed into them at the moment of birth. She was worshipped from the earliest of times by Egyptians.
==In mythology== {{Ancient Egyptian religion}} In ancient Egypt, women delivered babies while squatting on a pair of bricks, known as "birth bricks", and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nifosi |first=Ada |title=Becoming a woman and mother in Greco-Roman Egypt: women's bodies, society and domestic space |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-367-73182-3 |series=Medicine and the body in antiquity |location=London New York |pages=51}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Spieser |first=Cathie |date=2011-12-15 |title=Meskhenet et les sept Hathors en Egypte ancienne |url=http://journals.openedition.org/edl/141 |journal=Études de lettres |issue=3-4 |pages=63–92 |doi=10.4000/edl.141 |issn=0014-2026}}</ref> Consequently, in art, she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's uterus upon it.<ref name="Wilkinson" /> At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus on her headdress.<ref name="Wilkinson">{{cite book |author=Wilkinson, Richard H. |title=The complete gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |year=2003 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/completegodsgodd00wilk_0/page/152 152–153] |isbn=0-500-05120-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/completegodsgodd00wilk_0/page/152 }}</ref>
Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with Shai, who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.<ref name="Wilkinson"/>
Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the Westcar Papyrus.<ref name=":0" /> The story tells of the birth of Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare Kakai, the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, who in the story are said to be triplets.<ref name=":0" /> Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite book |author=Lichtheim, Miriam |author-link=Miriam Lichtheim |title=Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year=2006 |pages=220–222 |isbn=978-0-520-24842-7 }}</ref>
== Gallery == <gallery> File:Meskhenet.svg|Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick File:Shay egyptian god personification.png|Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in Weighing of the Heart in the Papyrus of Ani File:JuicioDeLasAlmas.jpg|Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in a Weighing of the Heart scene painted on a coffin File:Temple of Deir el-Medina 20.JPG|Meskhenet as a birth brick depicted above the scales in a Weighing of the Heart scene in Ptolemaic temple at Deir el-Medina </gallery>
==See also== * Taweret
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Commons category-inline}}
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Category:Creator goddesses Category:Childhood goddesses Category:Egyptian goddesses Category:Egyptian fertility goddesses