Facts About Goddess Sekhmet
Sekhmet was not only the goddess of war and revenge for the ancient Egyptians, she was the goddess of doctors, and the mother who is associated with the lioness, so she defends her young with all her strength and gives them protection. Sekhmet was associated with soldiering and the military, and with the invincible land, as she was the lady of the two lands, “the Delta and Upper Egypt.” Therefore, the Egyptians preserved her image in folk tales as well, and they still do.
In ancient Egyptian beliefs, Sekhmet is the wife of the god Ptah, who created the world with a word from him. Ptah was the protector of craftsmen and artists, and he is the greatest god of Memphis. Her son is the god Nefertum, who resembles the lotus flower, as the goddess of treachery Sekhmet was surrounded by the goddess of thought, art and divinity Ptah. Her son was a symbol of perfume and the rising sun. He added that Sekhmet was placed on the war flag when the Egyptians fought their wars, as the poetic hymn of Ramses II in the Kadesh War says: He asked Amun to help him, so Amun gave him the strength of Sekhmet in his arm.
In ancient times, "Montu" was the god of war and his headquarters were in Armant, but based on the Egyptian myth that the gods sent her as a punishment to humans for their injustice, Sekhmet in modern times for the Egyptians took on the function of the goddess of war, as the statues of the powerful Sekhmet were placed in the form of a lioness sitting on a throne decorated with the symbol of the unification of North and South Egypt, and holding in her hand the key of life "Ankh", and on her head the sun disk and the cobra snake.
She was symbolized by symbols of war, desert and epidemics, as Sekhmet was not only resorted to in war; because she was just and vengeful in ancient Egyptian thought only, she was the goddess of doctors and healing; because medicine was associated with the Egyptians with healing from psychological conditions; therefore, King Amenhotep III, whom archaeologists describe today as "the Great Pasha" gave her a number of sculptures in an attempt to treat him.
Amenhotep III did not fight wars like his ancestors who built a vast empire; but he was like all Egyptians at that time who believed in Sekhmet and her power; so he made thousands of statues of her, confirming that Sekhmet still lives among us in the common dialects of Upper Egypt, where the word “askhmetak” means “I disfigure your face”, and her form, which the ancients put, was linked to the image of “our mother the ghoul” in the folk tales that grandmothers used to tell.