| Sopdet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sopdet in green dress, with star on her head | |||||
| Name inhieroglyphs |
| ||||
| Symbol | Sirius; dog (Ptolemaic/Roman) | ||||
| Consort | Sah (Orion);Osiris | ||||
| Offspring | Sopdu (Venus);Horus | ||||
Sopdet is theancient Egyptian name of thestarSirius and itspersonification as anEgyptian goddess. Known to the Greeks asSothis, she was conflated withIsis as a goddess andAnubis as a god.
The exact pronunciation ofancient Egyptian is uncertain, as vowels were not recorded until a very late period. Inmodern transcription, her name usually appears as Sopdet (Spdt,[3]lit. 'Triangle' or'Sharp One'), after the known Greek and Latin form Sothis (Σῶθις,Sō̂this).
During the early period of Egyptian civilization, theheliacal rising of the bright star preceded the usual annualflooding of the Nile.[8] It was therefore apparently used for thesolar civil calendar which largely superseded the original lunar calendar in the 3rd millennium BC. Despite the wandering nature of theEgyptian calendar, the erratic timing of the flood from year to year, and the slow procession of Sirius within the solar year, Sopdet continued to remain central to cultural depictions of the year and to celebrations of Wep Renpet (Wp Rnpt), the Egyptian New Year. She was also venerated as a goddess of the fertility brought to the soil by the flooding.
She was long thought to be represented by the cow on an ivory tablet from the reign ofDjer (Dynasty I),[8] but this is no longer supported by mostEgyptologists.[9] During theOld Kingdom, she was an important goddess of the annual flood and apsychopomp guiding deceased pharaohs through theEgyptian underworld. During theMiddle Kingdom, she was primarily a mother and nurse and, by thePtolemaic period, she was almost entirely subsumed into Isis.[10]
Sopdet is the consort ofSah, the personifiedconstellation ofOrion near Sirius. Their childVenus[1] was the hawk godSopdu,[8] "Lord of the East".[11] As the "bringer of the New Year and the Nile flood", she was associated withOsiris from an early date[8] and by thePtolemaic period Sah and Sopdet almost solely appeared in forms conflated with Osiris[12] andIsis.[10]
She was depicted as a woman with a five-pointed star upon her head,[10] usually with a hornedhedjet similar toSatis.[8] In thePtolemaic andRoman period, the European notion of the "Dog Star" caused her to sometimes be represented as a large dog or as a woman riding onesidesaddle.[10]
From theMiddle Kingdom, Sopdet sometimes appeared as a god who held up part ofNut (the sky or firmament) withHathor. In Greco-Roman Egypt, the male Sopdet was conflated with the dog-headedAnubis.[1]
_(Vall%25C3%25A9e_des_Rois%2c_Th%25C3%25A8bes_ouest)_-8.jpg)
.jpg)
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
