Everything about Sopdet totally explained
In
Egyptian mythology,
Sopdet was the deification of
Sothis, a
star considered by almost all
egyptologists to be
Sirius. The name
Sopdet means
(she who is) sharp in
Egyptian, a reference to the brightness of Sirius, which is the brightest star in the night sky. In art she was depicted as a woman with a five-pointed star upon her head.
Just after Sirius appears in the July sky, the
Nile River begins its annual
flood, and so the ancient
Egyptians connected the two. Consequently Sopdet was identified as a goddess of the fertility of the soil, which was brought to it by the Nile's flooding. This significance led the Egyptians to base their calendar on the
heliacal rising of Sirius.
Sopdet was regarded as the consort of
Sah, the
constellation of
Orion, by which Sirius appears, and the planet
Venus was sometimes considered their child. The noticeably human figure of Orion was eventually identified as a form of
Horus, the sky-god, and thus, together with her being a fertility deity, this led to her being identified as a manifestation of
Isis.
After Sirius' appearance, the scorching heat of summer arrives, an aspect that was referred to as
Sopdu, meaning
(one who is) with Sopd,
Sopd being simply the
masculine form, and
stem, of
Sopdet. Since the heat arrived after Sirius' appearance, it was said that Sopdet had
given birth to it, thus Sopdu was seen as being a child of Sopdet, and thus also of Sah.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sopdet'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://sopdet.totallyexplained.com">Sopdet Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
