Hathor

The statue of the Egyptian goddess of creation, Hathor (pronounced Hat-hor), found in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr al-Bahri, Thebes, Egypt. It is appropriate that her statue was placed in the building, because the temple was intended as the elaborate tomb of Queen Hatshepsut (an 18th-dynasty queen of Egypt), and Hathor was, among many other things, the divine guardian of the resting places of the dead.

A local man standing in front of carvings in the Dendara temple, near Qina, Egypt. The temple was probably dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of love or joy. The existing temple was built between 125 BC and 60 AD, though there were shrines on this site long before that. The temple had become buried by sands from sandstorms, but was excavated in 1860.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, a sky goddess; wife or mother of the sky god Horus; goddess of dance, music, and love, (equivalent to Greek Aphrodite); also, goddess of desert cemeteries. She may appear as the great celestial cow, creator of the world; or as a human with cow's horns and ears. Other variations include a hornlike hairstyle, or a headdress in the shape of a sun-disc with cow's horns. She was popular with women as their protector, and was later associated with the principal goddess Isis whose headdress was indistinguishable.

The centre of her cult was Dendera, where a Ptolemaic temple was built and dedicated to her, and where she was embodied as a sistrum (a musical instrument thought to drive away evil spirits).

As goddess of love and desert cemeteries, she displayed close parallels with the Mesopotamian Ishtar, goddess of love and war.