page_title: Hathor
section_title: Worship
hierarchical_section_title: Hathor / Worship
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard University - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. This work is old enough so that it is in the public domain.
context_page_description: Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
  Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree.
caption: Copy of a statue of Hathor (center) with a goddess personifying the Fifteenth Nome of Upper Egypt (left) and the Fourth Dynasty king Menkaure (right); 26th century BC
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-RX100M3", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DSC-RX100M3 v1.00", "Image DateTime": "2017:01:13 17:55:08", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "296", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "20948", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5775", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:04:03 14:03:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:04:03 14:03:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-273/1280", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "141/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3289", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "5405", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "5472", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3648", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "20800", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "38", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "dfc3e17b2eaa6cb407d3c9e98e457f55", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[44/5, 257/10, 9/5, 14/5]"}