"NOTES ABOUT NEITH"

Several people have asked me why I use the name "Neith" when I'm posting to Sg-1 areas. In response I've compiled some notes on the Egyptian Goddess Neith from several sources that should be of interest to not just to SG1 fans but others also with an interest in ancient cultures?

Neith (with a long e sound) is the Hellenistic Greek rendering of a Egyptian word which is written NT plus the ideograms for Neith and goddess. The Egyptian pronounciation in the late period may have been "NIT" with the original archaic form being *Neret or Neitj?
Neith's symbol has been interpreted as being a shield with crossed spears or arrows or perhaps hunting darts or as a weaver's shuttle with thread twisted around it. The oldest known rendition shows the shield as being round rather than oval. Other variants show a fan with two arrows below or a shield with a flat bottom resting on a base.

Neith is the Guardian of the North and the Delta and is usually depicted in human form wearing the Red Crown of the North (Lower Egypt and the Delta). The main centre of her cult was the city the Greeks knew as SAIS (modern SA el Hagar - which by the way is not a city but a village built on top of the ruins) but for the Egyptians it was SA or SAW, capital of the 5th Nome of *Sap-mech in the Western Delta.

She seems like Minerva and Athena to have been a goddess both of war and the arts. The Romans and Greeks identified her with their goddess and she was also linked to a similar Libyan goddess and the Semitic Anat. Some myths call her a daughter of Ra, yet others the mother of Ra. Some claim she is the mother of Sobek the Crocodile god with Set being the Father. At Esna in Upper Egypt texts describe her as the Creatrix of the Nile Valley and hence the world, claiming she arose from somewhere in the South and as she walked northwards the Nile formed and the place where she ended her journey in the Delta became the city of SAIS - her first shrine. At Dendera she is depicted as wearing an "scaled" robe or an over robe of woven netting and holds an offering tray.

The 24th to 26th Dynasties saw a revival of her cult when Sais became the Capital of Egypt . Herodotus in Book 2 of his History describes a Lamp festival to Neith at Sais and a ceremony of healing by anointing with oils. Another thing you may want to know about Sais is that it was a center for Egyptians of Libyan descent and the nome was ruled by the Great Chiefs of MA - aristocrats of Libyan descent such as Tefnakht who opposed Piankhy the founder of the Nubian dynasty. The Greeks believed that certain Libyan tribes worshipped Athene and also identified Neith with Athene. The Saites seem to have taken advantage of this to forge trade links even setting up a special trading town at nearby Naucratis! While Thebes was the capital during the Middle and New Kingdom, in the Late Period most dynasties had their capitals in the Delta for various reasons - defence needs, contact with foreign powers, trade etc,.

Books about Neith

There do not seem to be any major works solely about Neith written in English but while researching this article I came across references to some books in French. I have not read or come across these books in a local university library myself however for those who can read French:

A Note on First Dynasty Queens named Neith

There were First Dynasty Queens with Neith elements in their names indicating an association with the goddess. The first of them is Neithhotep (c. 3100) married to AHA / Menes, a ruler who founded a temple to Neith the goddess. She has a large stone tomb at Abydos.
Then there was HERNEITH (c. 3000 bc) married to DJER. Rather than being buried with her retainers she seems to have chosen to be buried only with her favorite hound at the threshold of her tomb (3507 at Saqqara) though her mastaba tomb had 300 auroch (wild oxen) skulls surrounding it!
The next Neith queen was MERNEITH (c. 2900 bc) who may have been Herneith's daughter and was married to DJET the Serpent. She was also known as Meryet-Nit and served as a regent for the next Pharaoh DEN (Udimu) and unfortunately for her retainers she reverted to the practice of having many of them buried with her in her tomb. The Cairo Musem has a Stele with her name on it - JE 34550. ,

Finally we come to the Dynasty 6 Queen NEITH the sister-wife of Pepy 2 and probably the mother of Merenre 2 and perhaps Nitiqret (Nitocris). She has a small pyramid described in Mark Lehner's book and in a French book which I have not read by G. Jequier - Cairo 1933 Les Pyramides des Reines Neit et Apouit.



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I apologize for any messy bits and bad links - I'm still editing and my html code is less than perfect.

If you know of any other Neith resources to add to this page such as links to other pages or images of her or bibliographic data on books or articles then please Email Me soon more infomation can be shared on the NET? Let other people know about the page too if you found it useful. Okay!

Here are some new links - Kemet.org and the Tour Egypt site has images of Neith.

Please come back soon and visit me.

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