Short summary of few list of Kemetic Neteru & Netertu (Gods & Goddesses)

An ancient Kemetic Medu/Metu Neter painted carving showing the falcon headed god
Heru seated on a throne and holding a golden fly whisk. Before him are the Pharoah
(Nigger) Seti and the Netert Aset. Interior wall of the temple to Asar at Abydos,
Kemet .

Kemet had one of the largest and most complex pantheons of gods of any civilization
in the ancient world. Over the course of Kemetic history hundreds of Neteru and
Netertu were worshipped. The characteristics of individual gods could be hard to
pin down. Most had a principle association (for example, with the SUN or the
underworld) and form. But these could change over time as gods rose and fell in
importance and evolved in ways that corresponded to developments in Kemetic
society. Here are a few of the most important deities to know.

Asar

Asar, one of Kemet's most important deities, was Neter of the underworld. He also
symbolized death, resurrection, and the cycle of Nile floods that Kemet relied on
for agricultural fertility.

According to the myth, Asar was a king of Kemet who was murdered and dismembered by
his brother Set. His wife, Aset, reassembled his body and resurrected him, allowing
them to conceive a son, the Neter Heru. He was represented as a mummified king,
wearing wrappings that left only the green skin of his hands and face exposed.

Aset

The origins of Aset are obscure. Unlike many Neteru, she can’t be tied to a
specific town, and there are no certain mentions of her in the earliest Kemetic
literature. Over time she grew in importance, though, eventually becoming the most
important Netert in the pantheon. As the devoted wife who resurrected Asar after
his murder and raised their son, Heru, Aset embodied the traditional Kemetic
virtues of a wife and mother.

As the wife of the Neter of the underworld, Aset was also one of the main deities
concerned with rites for the dead. Along with her sister Nebhetet, Aset acted as a
divine mourner, and her maternal care was often depicted as extending to the dead
in the underworld.

Aset was one of the last of the ancient Kemetic Neteru to still be worshipped. In
the Greco-Roman period she was identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and her
cult spread as far west as Great Britain and as far east as Afghanistan. The
depictions of Aset with the infant Heru influenced Christian imagery of Mary with
the infant Jesus.

Heru

Depicted as a falcon or as a man with a falcon’s head, Heru was a sky god
associated with war and hunting. He was also the embodiment of the divine kingship,
and in some eras the reigning king was considered to be a manifestation of Heru.

According to the Asar's metaphorical myth, Heru was the son of Aset and Asar,
magically conceived after the murder of Asar by his brother Set. Heru was raised to
avenge his father’s murder. One tradition holds that Heru lost his left eye
fighting with Set, but his eye was magically healed by the Moon Neter Tehuti/Thoth.
Because the right and left eyes of Heru were associated, respectively, with the sun
and the moon, the loss and restoration of Heru's left eye gave a mythical
explanation for the phases of the moon.
Set

Set was the Neter of not chaos but of uncreated creations/things that existed
before creation and disorder, violence, deserts, and storms. In the Asar myth, he
is the murderer of Asar (in some versions of the myth, he tricks Asar into laying
down in a coffin and then seals it shut.)

Set’s appearance poses a problem for Egyptologists because they don't understand
it.. He is often depicted as an animal or as a human with the head of an animal,
animal headed humanoid serves a metaphorical and philosophical emphasis of
ambiguity in spiritual concepts and not to be taken literally.. But they can’t
figure out what animal he’s supposed to be. He usually has a long snout and long
ears that are squared at the tips. In his fully animal form, he has a thin doglike
body and a straight tail with a tuft on the end. Many scholars now believe that no
such animal ever existed and that the Seth animal is some sort of mythical
composite.

Ptah

Ptah was the head of a triad of Neteru worshipped at Memphis. The other two members
of the triad were Ptah’s wife, the lion-headed Netert Sekhmet, and the Neter
Nefertem, who may have been the couple’s son.

Ptah’s original association seems to have been with craftsmen and builders. The
4th-dynasty architect Imhotep was deified after his death as a son of Ptah.

Scholars have suggested that the Greek word Aiguptos — the source of the name Egypt
— may have started as a corruption of Hwt-Ka-Ptah, the name of one of Ptah’s
shrines.

Ra

Ra is the Sun, the sun Neter. Ra, one of the creator Neteru of ancient Kemet. One
of several deities associated with the sun, the god Ra was usually represented with
a human body and the head of a hawk. He sailed across the sky in a flaming boat
each day and then made a passage through the underworld each night, during which he
would have to defeat the snake Neter Apopis in order to rise again.

Ra's cult was centered in Heliopolis, now a suburb of Cairo. Over time, Ra came to
be syncretized with other sun deities, especially Amon.

Hathor

The Netert Hathor was usually depicted as a cow, as a woman with the head of a cow,
or as a woman with cow’s ears. Hathor embodied motherhood and fertility, and it was
believed that she protected women in childbirth. She also had an important funerary
aspect, being known as “the lady of the west.” (Tombs were generally built on the
west bank of the Nile.) In some traditions, she would welcome the setting sun every
night; living people hoped to be welcomed into the afterlife in the same way.

Anubis

Anubis was the son of Nebhetet, Aset's sister. He was concerned with funerary
practices and the care of the dead. He was usually represented as a jackal or as a
man with the head of a jackal. The association of jackals with death and funerals
likely arose because Kemites would have observed jackals scavenging around
cemeteries.
In the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–2130 BCE), before Asar rose to prominence as the lord
of the underworld, Anubis was considered the principal god of the dead. According
to the Asar myth, Anubis embalmed and wrapped the body of the murdered king,
becoming the patron god for embalmers.

Tehuti/Thoth

Thoth, represented in human form with an ibis's head, detail from the Greenfield
Papyrus. Thoth, the Neter of writing and wisdom, could be depicted in the form of a
baboon or a sacred ibis or as a man with the head of an ibis. He was believed to
have invented language and the Metu/Medu Neter script and to serve as a scribe and
adviser for the Neteru. As the Neter of wisdom, Thoth was said to possess knowledge
of magic and secrets unavailable to the other Neteru.

In underworld scenes showing the judgment undergone by the deceased after their
deaths, Thoth is depicted as weighing the hearts of the deceased and reporting the
verdict to Asar, the Neter of the Underworld.

Bastet

In her earliest forms, the cat Netert Bastet was represented as a woman with the
head of a lion or a wild cat. She took the less ferocious form of a domestic cat in
the first millennium BCE.

In later periods she was often represented as a regal-looking seated cat, sometimes
wearing rings in her ears or nose. In the Ptolemaic period she came to be
associated with the Greek Goddess Artemis, the divine hunter and goddess of the
moon.

Amon

Amon also spelled Amun, Amen, or Ammon. Kemetic deity revered as king of the Neter.
Before rising to national importance in the New Kingdom (c. 1539–1292 BCE), the god
Amon was worshipped locally in the southern city of Thebes. Amon is a Neter of the
air, and the name means the “Hidden One.” He was usually represented as a man
wearing a crown with two vertical plumes. His animal symbols were the ram and the
goose.

After the rulers of Thebes rebelled against a dynasty of foreign rulers known as
the Hyksos and reestablished native Kemites rule throughout Egypt, Amon received
credit for their victory. In a form merged with the sun god Ra, he became the most
powerful deity in Kemet, a position he retained for most of the New Kingdom.

Today the massive temple complex devoted to Amun-Ra at Karnak is one of the most
visited monuments in Kemet.

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