The Great Goddess of Health and Healing in Ancient Egypt

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Updated on: Educator Review By: Michelle Connolly
Goddess of Health and Healing
Ancient Egyptian

In ancient Egypt, priests were also doctors. The three Goddesses of Health and Healing were connected to medicine and could be thought of as the doctors’ patron gods. Also, if we know even a little about mythology, we can figure out why they were patrons of the doctors.

Wabu

The Priest-Physicians and Surgeons of Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, priests who knew about medicine were called wabu.

Wab was the name of one of the priests, the Goddess of Health and Healing.

Just the meaning of the word is exciting. It means “to clean” in English, and the person who does these things is called a priest. Because of this, most of these doctors and nurses were called wabu, the plural form of wab.

Sekhmet is known as the “First Goddess of Health and Healing.”

Sekhmet is known as the "First God of Medicine."
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet, the goddess of the sun, fire plagues, healing and war. Vector isolated illustration. A woman with the head of a lion and the sun disk above her.

The god Sekhmet was very important to these priests. The fact that the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet is linked to the priestly class is exciting. She is almost always shown in statues as a woman who looks like a lion.

So, she is fierce, and there is a myth about her fierceness: The Sun God Re was getting old, but people didn’t listen to him, making him angry. Because of this, he turned against people. So, he asks Sekhmet to be his eye, and then he sends her to Earth to kill everyone. 

In the meantime, the Sun God changes his mind about what he wants to do, but he can’t stop Sekhmet from doing it. 

So, Re has his helpers mix ochre and beer to make it look like blood. Then, they spread this mixture all over the land and told Sekhmet that it was the blood of all people. 

Sekhmet was so happy that she said, “I’m going to drink the blood of all people.” She then drinks the mixture, gets drunk, and forgets that she was supposed to kill everyone else, which means that the human race lives on.

Because of this, it is strange that she is associated with healing and other good things. In spite of this, she is worshipped as a god or goddess who is connected to medicine.

This text came straight from the “History of Ancient Egypt” video series, which you can find here. You can see it on Wondrium right now.

Toth comes in second place and is the Goddess of Health and Healing.

Toth is another god with something to do with medicine, but it makes more sense for him to be linked to doctors.

Most pictures of Toth show him as a bird with a long beak called an ibis. Toth looks like a man, but his head is like a bird’s. He has a body like a person. Since writing is thought to have been invented by Toth, he is also known as the god of writing. He was also one of the gods in charge of medicine.

In the past, written words were strange and hard to understand. There’s no doubt that writing is a great and important invention, but the Egyptians didn’t do it very much. 

Because of these reasons, they knew best at the time. Everyone knows they didn’t write about how they turned bodies into mummies. They should have included clues about how to build the pyramids or the temples. But they did write about medical issues.

The Stories People Tell About Toth

Myths explain why Toth is seen as one of the gods in charge of medicine. Almost certainly, Isis, Osiris, and Seth are all linked to each other. In one of these stories, their son Horus is shown fighting with his uncle Seth. 

Horus beats Seth, but he has to give up one of his eyes to do it. Except for one, all of the eyepieces have been found.

When this happens, God Toth, the god of medicine, gives Horus the missing piece of his eye and his sight back. 

Because of this, the eye of Horus became a magical cure for sickness.

In another version of the story, he is the one who saves Horus’s life. Horus was a baby when Seth found him. Isis had hidden him from Seth by putting him in a thicket.

On the other hand, Horus had been stung by a scorpion and died because of it. Isis started howling and crying so loudly that the sound went up to the heavens and reached the gods. So, Toth went to Earth and brought Horus back to life.

So, it makes sense that doctors thought of Toth as a god and worshipped him. This is one reason why few doctors are living in the temples of Toth.

Isis was the third God or Goddess who was linked to medicine.

The goddess Isis
Egyptian goddess Isis

Horus was cared for by Isis.

In ancient Egypt, people thought that the goddess Isis was the most important god of medicine.

Isis is definitely the third god or goddess of medicine, and she is the most important one. Her husband came back to life because of what she did.

And that is a wonderful thing. But once more, the Bible tells a similar version of a fantastic story about Isis.

The story says that Isis and her son Horus were trying to get away from Seth when he caught up with them. A group of seven small scorpions protected Isis. Isis went to a woman’s house and knocked on the door because she needed a safe place to hide. When the woman saw the scorpions, though, she didn’t want to help Isis.

This made the scorpions so angry that they put all of their poison in the tail of just one of them. Now, this woman who was against Isis also had a child, but she wouldn’t help Isis. The poisonous scorpion’s sting was too much for the child, and he or she died. Isis felt sorry for the sad woman and touched the child. 

When she did, the child got better and came back to life. Because of this, Isis also had the power to heal illnesses.

Isis is sometimes called the “Goddess of Motherhood.”

Her name was Eset, which means “Goddess of the Throne” in English. The Osiris myth and the fact that she helped other gods and people get to paradise after death showed that she cared about them. This helped her become the most powerful and well-known goddess in Egyptian mythology.

Mythology says that these gods of medicine had something to do with healing and bringing life back to the dead.

This helps to explain why ancient Egypt’s doctor priests lived in the temples dedicated to these gods.

Sekhmet, Toth, and Isis were the ancient Egyptian gods who were in charge of medicine. This is something that most people know about the Three Gods of Medicine in Ancient Egypt.

In statues from ancient Egypt, Sekhmet was usually shown as a woman with the head of a lioness. Her husband, Toth, was often shown with her in pictures.

 Most of the time, Toth was drawn as an ibis, which is a bird with a very long bill.

His body was that of a human, but his head was that of an ibis.

The legend says that Toth was the one who saved Horus from the thicket where Isis had hidden him from Seth when he was a baby.

On the other hand, Horus had been stung by a scorpion and died because of it.

Isis started howling and crying so loudly that the sound went up to the heavens and reached the gods. So, Toth, the Egyptian god of medicine, came to Earth and brought Horus back to life.

In ancient Egypt, the goddess of war was called Sekhmet the Bloodthirsty.

Sekhmet was the goddess of both war and medicine in Ancient Egypt.

She was also considered the goddess of doctors and healers; she could make people sick and heal them simultaneously. Without a doubt, Sekhmet was one of the best-known Egyptian goddesses. The Egyptians had both respect for and fear of her.

Sekhmet, an Egyptian goddess, can also be written as Sakhmet. Her name is Sachmis.

She is also called the goddess of war, in addition to being a healer. She was looked up to as the guardian of the pharaohs and led their armies into battle.

Sekhmet was an Egyptian goddess of healing, curses, and threats. She was also a goddess of war. Priests of Sekhmet were often healers. In addition to using scientific knowledge, people also used things like magic, incantations, amulets, aromas, offerings, tattoos, and statues as part of their treatment.

Sekhem

Sekhem was a way to heal that people in ancient Egypt used. Sekhem was practised for many centuries and was part of the spiritual rituals taught in ancient Egyptian temples.

Heka

Heka was worshipped in ancient Egypt as a god of medicine and magic. He also stood for the idea of magic as a person. 

He is likely the most important god in Egyptian mythology. But Egyptologists often need to pay more attention to him because he was so common in Egyptian culture in the 19th and 20th centuries CE that it was almost impossible to miss him.

Wadjet,

The Eye of Horus
The eye of Horus

which was also called the Eye of Horus, was a “Symbol of Protection and Healing.” The most well-known ancient Egyptian symbol is the Eye of Horus, also called Uto, Udjat, and Wedjat. It represents healing, protection, good health, luck, royal power, sacrifice, and the ability to heal.

Sekhem started as a way of healing used in ancient Egypt. Sekhem was practised for many centuries and was part of the spiritual rituals taught in ancient Egyptian temples.

At the time, Egypt was the cultural centre of the whole world. 

People from all over the known world went to Egypt to learn and study, and they did so in the many temples there. But only a few people could get through the difficult process of becoming a Priest.

Some of them were successful, and when they returned home, they taught other people in their home countries the sacred arts of mysticism and healing based on what they had learned.

Over many years, the teachings changed as the teachers and their philosophies grew and changed. Eventually, each school of thought had its own feel and energy different from the others.

The Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, who has the head of a lion and is called the Guardian and Protector of this energy, gave it its name. 

She is very close to the celestial body called Sirus, the brightest star you can see at night and, according to myths and legends, was there when the universe was born. 

Even though many myths say she has destructive powers, she is also seen as the Goddess of Regeneration and Healing. 

This makes her both the Bringer of destruction and healing. She is the patroness of the Healing Sciences and the Art of War, making her the Bringer of both. 

Sekhmet makes sure that things we no longer need should be thrown away are destroyed so we can start building again. 

Sekhmet also helps us change our lives and eliminate old habits and routines that aren’t good for us.

The word “Sekhem” means “Power of Powers,” It has to do with how we can use our personal power to heal our bodies and grow spiritually.

The word “Sekhem” means “Power of Powers,” It has to do with how we can use our personal power to heal our bodies and grow spiritually. 

After we have been initiated, all the healing work we do will be much better from a religious perspective. 

Sekhem is channelled uniquely and has a much higher vibration than other energies.

The Temples are covered with hieroglyphs showing the Gods healed and becoming members of different sacred orders. You can see these carvings for yourself if you go to the Temples. The Egyptian Book of the Dead and other ancient scrolls found in the ruins of temples and pyramids talk about Sekhem.

There were a lot of very powerful goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon. Isis, the Great Sorceress and mother of all gods, is the most well-known. 

But in ancient times, more people worshipped Hathor, the goddess of love and music. She changed into many different things, but most were very good and safe for the people of Egypt. But when Hathor got mad, she turned into Sekhmet, the Bloodthirsty, a scary lioness who lived off the blood and fear of her enemies. 

In Egyptian art, She was pictured as a woman with a lion’s head. And sometimes, her skin was painted green, just like Osiris’s. 

She held an ankh symbol in her left hand and a lotus flower with a long stem in her right. On top of her head was a large solar disc, which connected her to the sun god Ra, and a uraeus, the snake that Egyptian kings wore.

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