Meskhenet
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Wikidata imageTemplate:Compare image with Wikidata In ancient Egyptian mythology, Meskhenet, (also spelt Mesenet, Meskhent, and Meshkent) was the goddess of childbirth, and the creator of each child's Ka, a part of their soul, which she breathed into them at the moment of birth. She was worshipped from the earliest of times by Egyptians.
In mythology
Template:Ancient Egyptian religion In ancient Egypt, women delivered babies while squatting on a pair of bricks, known as "birth bricks", and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery.[1][2] Consequently, in art, she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's uterus upon it.[3] At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus on her headdress.[3]
Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with Shai, who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.[3]
Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the Westcar Papyrus.[2] The story tells of the birth of Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare Kakai, the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, who in the story are said to be triplets.[2] Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.[2][4]
Gallery
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Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick
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Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in Weighing of the Heart in the Papyrus of Ani
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Meskhenet depicted as a birth brick in a Weighing of the Heart scene painted on a coffin
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Meskhenet as a birth brick depicted above the scales in a Weighing of the Heart scene in Ptolemaic temple at Deir el-Medina
