Assignment 2 Yunyao Chen 900204948

1. a. In "the Myth of the Sacred Name of Re," Isis was portrayed as a clever, shrewd
and ambitious female magician who successfully knew the secret name of god
Re.
b. In "the Myth of Destruction of Mankind," Hathor (later became Sakhmet) was
the "Eye of Re" who was sent to slay mankind according to Re's command. She
was portrayed as a beloved daughter of Re who liked drinking.
c. In "the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys," and "the Great Hymn to Osiris," Isis
was portrayed as a soulful wife and helpful wife. Nephthys, on the other hand,
was portrayed as a loyal minister who wanted to guard the rights and poverty of
Osiris. At the same time, she was also a helpful sister for Osiris.
d. In "the Great Hymn to Hathor at Dendera," Hathor was the wife of Horus who
loved wine, music, and dancing. In "the Hymn to Mertseger," Mertseger is
depicted as a merciful one who rendered help to Neferabu.

2. There are myths mentioned in Darnell's article, including the eye of Horus, the
goddess of the eye of the sun, and the association of Bes with the Udjat-eye and
Neither and sister uraei. There are various goddesses who are mentioned as the
wandering eye, such as Hathor, Isis, Sekhmet, Basket and the hippopotamus
goddess. In Te Velde's article, Mut was related to the complex uraeus, lion, eye
and crowns in the 18th Dynasty. Since Ramesside times, Mut had been related to
Eye of Re. Her important mythical theme is the return and the reconciliation, in
which many allusions to singing, music and dancing are found. In addition, Mut
has been considered as a daughter of Amun since the 18th Dynasty.
3. Many Egyptian goddesses had undergone developmental progress and they
gained some new features and new apotropaic power in this process. Fischer
points out that Bat and Hathor had shared similar features — "the combination
of cow's horns and human face" since the Early Dynastic Period. In the Middle
Kingdom, Hathor had assimilated the sistrum from Bat. This process implies why
 music can pacify the wandering goddess in the myth of goddess of the eye of the
sun to some extent.
4. Susan Hollis proposes that goddess Nut as Mother goddess and mortuary
goddess may reflect the relatively higher social status of ancient Egyptian
women than the women in other ancient civilizations. She admits that the
materials she considered are ambiguous and the evidence is not so sufficient to
reflect the social status of ancient Egyptian women in all social classes. In
addition, I think she doesn’t have enough knowledge of other ancient
civilizations. In ancient Chinese myths, there are many goddesses who can be
associated with the sky. For example, the goddess "Xihe" （ 羲 和 ) is an
important sun goddess and "Chang'e" （ 嫦 娥 ） is a critical famous moon
goddess in Chinese culture. I do not think the worship of these goddesses has a
connection with women's social status in ancient China. In addition, the mother
of a king in ancient China also enjoyed unparalleled high social status and there
were also several empresses in ancient China and Japan, but it cannot prove that
women had high social status in society. In fact, there is sufficient evidence to
prove that women in ancient China and Japan had much lower social status than
men. Therefore, I completely disagree with her premise.
5. What strikes me most in Lesko's discussion is that she associates the click beetle
with the Nile flooding. I feel it is a very striking but not a convincing discussion,
because many animals had to work hard and successfully survived from the
inundation. Therefore, I do not think her discussion on why ancient Egyptians
chose the click beetle as the form of Neith and made her a flooding goddess is
convincing.