Sekhmet to Bastet : Wild to Tame and Back Again!

1. How does the ancient Egyptian concept of ma’at, or balance, express itself through the transformation of the lioness goddess Sekhmet? Sekhmet to Bastet: Wild to Tame and Back Again!

2. Sekemet and bastet

3. Sekhmet and bastet

4. The lioness goddess Sekhmet, with her corona of power—a sun disk symbolizing daily renewal and a cobra for protection—is carved in stone. Her name, Sekhmet, meant “She who is powerful.” Who would challenge the great deity or her absolute authority? Sometimes threatening and dangerous, as a furious lioness who slays the enemies of the king, Sekhmet evolved from a gentle, cat-like mother who once nursed a rulerIn her guise as the fierce lioness, Sekhmet was known to the ancient Egyptians as the goddess of sickness and disease. Therefore, the great lioness goddess Sekhmet is not only a wild powerful animal in appearance, but a nurturing human female as well. N Sekhmet – page 33 Gods, Goddesses, and Animals Sekhmet

5. In Sekhmet’s peaceful state, she could become the domestic cat, Bastet, goddess of fertility and the home. Thus, ancient Egyptians saw Sekhmet and Bastet as complementary aspects of the same goddess. This was not a strange or unusual leap of the imagination, but a familiar concept observed in real life. Movement and transformation were key to life on the Nile. Flooding, agricultural cycles, and the celestial changes of the sun, moon, and stars informed and shaped the Egyptian concepts of divinities. These forces of nature and divinity, as well as the unerring cycles of the Nile were understood to exist in cosmic harmony, or ma’at. Bastet

6. Read aloud

7. What is the statue made from? How do you think the surface feels? Is this statue complete? What are the clues that it is not? So what kind of animal do you think this is, and why? Are all the characteristics animal-like? What parts are not animal-like? Is there something about the statue that hints that the lion/human is special or unusual? Does the statue remind you of anything you have ever seen before? What kind of feeling do you have when you view Sekhmet? Can something be wild or fierce, and alternately calm too? What are all the ways that the figures are similar? What are the differences? How do the sun disk and uralus make Sekhmet unique? What do you think Bastet could be holding? Does one image seem friendlier or more familiar? Why? What animals could be gods and goddesses in our time and culture? Divide into small groups and answer these questions