The Goddess Matit MAty.t and her Role in the Ancient Egyptian Religion

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract


Matit, MAty.t (also readMAity.t) was a lioness-goddess (like Hathor, Sekhmet of Memphis, Bastet of Bubastis, Mehyt of This and etc.), whose name probably meant “she the one who has the appearance of a lioness”, “The one that looks like a lioness” or“The Dismemberer”, as confirmed by the determinative of her name which is clearly visible in the inscriptions of those vast tombs where the nomarchs of the Sixth Dynasty were buried at the end of the Old Kingdom especially at Deir el-Gabrawi. She acted as the main deity of the Twelfth Nome of Upper Egypt, described as “the mistress of Iakemet”, before her counterpart, the falcon deity Nemty/Anty takes the first place. However, Matit was only of local importance usually represented in the animal form of a fierce warrior lioness or portrayed as a woman with a lioness’s head.
In a scene of the funerary temple of Medinet Habu, of Ramses III, Matit was represented behind Nemty, in the form of a woman with a lioness head crowned with the solar disk. Later, the geographical lists of late temples, however, show that Matit not only retained her place to the end as goddess of the Nome, but had some reputation outside of it also at that period. She was found among the many gods who ensure the protection of Osiris in one of the chapels of the temple of Dendera. She is sometimes assimilated to the goddess Isis delivering her brother Seth to a place of internment so that he can no longer penetrate the city of Abydos.
In the temple of Dendera, Matit also appears twice in the third Chapel of the Osirian Chapels, guarding the entrance leading to the chapel, she was firstly depicted as a woman with a lioness head armed with two knives, but in the second representation which is at the bottom of the chapel wall she is this time symmetrically opposed to the goddess Mehyt, on both sides of the body of Osiris, she is represented, in the fully zoomorphic aspect of an elongated lioness on a rectangular base with behind her a falcon that seems to be the son of Isis (Horus), the wings are open forward in a protective gesture, wearing a crown placed on horizontal ram horns and she does not have the tail wrapped around the thigh, an interesting detail already noted in the determinative of her name in the Old Kingdom, but here the tail was raised (drawn up) towards the back and returned over the back, like an angry cat waving the tail, which is probably a way to express the anger or fury of a formidable guardian.

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