Mafdet is an Egyptian feline goddess depicted as either a cheetah or
panther. She appears as early as the Thinite period on an artifact from
the king Den. In Egyptian mythology, she wears a panther skin and her
hair is braided, symbolising the jointed bodies of scorpions she has
killed. She represents divine punishment, and as the personification of
the executioner’s tool of judicial authority, her symbols are a rope, a
blade of execution and a pole, which she climbs in her feline form.
As the protector of the Old Kingdom Re, she is noted for decapitating
the sun god's enemies with her razor sharp teeth. Her long and deadly
claws represent the barbs on the pharaoh's harpoon used to protect the
king against his enemies in the underworld of Wesir, and her ferocity
prevails over scorpions and snakes. One of Mafdet's numerous epithets
is The Great Cat, which lends strength to her symbolic action as the
destroyer of the enemy of the dead. She is also known as Slayer of Serpents
and Lady of the Castle of Life.
On the British Museum papyrus 10059, Mafdet is linked to healing:
It is this discharge (of Set) in its climax which has been siezed by
Mafdet in this room, and which provoked the cries of Isis (when) the
testicles of Seth had been cut (in this room). Do not be chained up, go
out, discharge of Horus […] O Mafdet, open your jaws against this
enemy, a dead man, a dead woman!
Mafdet's mythological presence is in the "house of life" and in her
capacity as healer, she removes and destroys the "discharge" from the
person who is ill. A cake is then fashioned in the form of the affected
body part, placed inside the fat part of a portion of meat and fed to a
female cat. By consuming the meat containing the fat, she symbolically kills the enemy.
REFERENCES
Chambrun, Ruspoli M. "L'Epervier divin." (1969)
Thibaud, Robert-Jacques. "Dictionnaire de Mythologie et de
Symbolique Egyptienne." (1996)
Guilhou, N. "un texte de gurrision," in Chronique
d’Egypte.
Article researched and written by Sementawy Horemheb and Teinne
Horemheb
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