Sekhmet was the lioness-headed Egyptian goddess of war, destruction, plague and healing — the fierce and bloodthirsty Eye of Ra who nearly annihilated mankind, the “Powerful One” whose breath was the desert wind and whose arrows brought pestilence, yet who was also invoked to ward off the very plagues she sent. The most terrifying of the Egyptian goddesses, she embodies the destroying fury of the sun.
The Powerful One
Sekhmet (Egyptian Sekhmet, “the Powerful One”) was depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness, often crowned with the solar disc and a cobra, and her name itself proclaimed her power. She was the goddess of war, destruction, fire, plague and vengeance — the embodiment of the fierce, scorching, destroying power of the sun. She was a warrior-goddess of terrifying ferocity, the protector of the pharaoh in battle who breathed fire against his enemies, and her hot breath was said to be the desert wind. She was one of the chief forms of the Eye of Ra, the feminine personification of the sun's destructive heat sent out to punish.
The Destroyer of Mankind
Sekhmet's most famous myth is the near-destruction of the human race. When mankind plotted rebellion against the aging sun-god Ra, he sent forth his Eye in the form of Sekhmet (or Hathor transformed into her) to punish them. The lioness-goddess fell upon humanity in a frenzy of slaughter, killing without mercy and drinking the blood of the slain, until she had nearly wiped out the entire human race — and she could not be stopped, for she was drunk on the joy of killing and would not cease. To save the remnant of mankind, the gods devised a trick: they brewed a vast quantity of beer dyed red to look like blood, and flooded the fields with it. Sekhmet, thinking it blood, drank it greedily, became thoroughly drunk, and fell into a stupor — and when she awoke, her bloodlust was spent, and she was pacified, transformed back into the gentle goddess (Hathor). Thus mankind was saved by beer, and the festival of Sekhmet's pacification was celebrated with drinking ever after.
The Bringer and Healer of Plague
Sekhmet had a profound dual association with plague and healing. As the goddess of destruction, she was believed to send pestilence and disease — her “arrows” and the “messengers of Sekhmet” brought epidemics, and her hot breath spread plague. But for this very reason, she was also the goddess to whom one prayed for protection from plague and for healing: since she sent disease, she could also withhold or cure it, and her priests were associated with medicine and healing. Sekhmet was thus both the bringer of pestilence and the great healer, the goddess whose terrible power could destroy or, if appeased, protect and cure — a vivid expression of the Egyptian sense that the same fierce divine power was both the danger and the defence against it.
The Fury of the Sun
Sekhmet endures as the most fearsome of the Egyptian goddesses — the lioness of war and destruction, the bloodthirsty Eye of Ra who nearly destroyed mankind, the bringer and healer of plague, the protector of the pharaoh whose breath was fire. She embodies the destroying, scorching fury of the sun and the terrible power of the divine feminine when roused to wrath; and she stands, with the gentle Hathor, as the two faces of a single great goddess — joy and fury, healing and plague, the nurturing cow and the bloodthirsty lioness, within one divine power.
The bloodthirsty lioness who nearly destroyed all mankind and was stopped only by a flood of beer dyed red as blood — she who sends the plague is also she who heals it.