Talk:Neith

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The planet Venus was once thought to have a moon, which was called Neith. Perhaps. But this is the kind of statement that needs a little who what when where why huh Wetman 04:49, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

There's more at the Venus (planet) article. RickK 04:52, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I didn't write the entire article, I just added some tidbits. That was already there when I got here; I know nothing about astronomy so I can't add anything to the article in that regard. Premeditated_Chaos

The line "Plutarch said her temple (of which nothing now remains) bore the inscription: I am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. No mortal has yet been able to lift the veil that covers Me." contradicts the Sais, Egypt article, which asserts that this was written on a temple of Isis, not Neith. I don't know which, if either is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.7.21 (talk) 08:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: I have added additional information about Neith's cosmic qualities as goddess of the non-visible elliptical sky above the visible sky, which impacts upon her role as both creatrix and as mother of the sun. This entire article is somewhat garbled as it appears a great deal of "New Age" information has been added in that does not reference actual scholarly information about this goddess. I have tried to remove where I can, but a review of this article and possible rewrite is suggested. I am willing to rewrite if OK'd. Kgriffisgreenberg (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your additions. You're very welcome to do a rewrite. Most of these ancient Egyptian religion articles are practically unattended. I keep an eye on them to keep them from getting worse, but in most cases I don't have the time or sources to do more. Just be sure to cite sources for—well, just about everything what you write. It's preferable to cite sources in a format like this: <ref>el-Sayed 1982, pp. 10–11</ref>. That way, the sources will appear in footnotes at the bottom of the article. Happy editing. A. Parrot (talk) 18:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Neith's creation myth

I've heard numerous times about Neiths being originally a creation goddess, having created the world in one version of an Egyptian creation myth. But never a clear story. There are clearer stories about the creation myth of Ra, Ptah, Atum etc. But never that much about Neith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.62.42.17 (talk) 13:25, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Neith was considered as a very old deity, even by the Ancient Egyptians. In fact, according to the Pyramid Text, Neith is indeed considered as the eldest of all Ancient Egyptian goddess. This might support the fact that Neith may, in fact, be one of the primeval creator deities of the complex Ancient Egyptian Religion. In addition to this, many contemporary authors regard Neith as the true mother of Ra (who represented the Beginning of Everything from its chaotic, primordial being) - but this is, of course, just one of the many interpretations that we have. Even more, Neith was sometimes seen as a goddess of fate because she was associated with the Weaving Shuttle - where she was said to weave the Strands of Fate (analogous to the Hellenic/Greek Sisters of Fate), thus associating her with Creations, Destiny and, of course, Death. Remember the fact that these stories are just myths and all its meanings are very much inconsistent and often lost to our modern understandings - leaving them open to contemporary interpretations 203.87.203.190 (talk) 06:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"Ex Nihilo"

The Egyptian myth recalled here does not depict creation ex nihilo as asserted in the article. Ex nihilo means "out of nothing;" the myth describes Neith creating the land out of the "waters of chaos." If you have water, or chaos, or anything else out of which to create, you are not creating ex nihilo. I will be ammending the article accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.153.242.91 (talk) 12:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that a Was in her hand?

This page, and the page "Goad", say she is carrying a goad. I'm more familiar with that staff being a Was. I've never heard it referred to as a goad before. Then again I'm no expert in the field of Hieroglyphs. Does anyone know which is correct (or if both are)? Magma (talk) 11:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

It's definitely a was staff. From what I understand, the origin of the was is uncertain, and one of the suggestions floating around may be that it derived from some kind of goad. But the theory I've heard (and I think there was at least one reliable source that mentioned this) says that the was came from a snake-handling tool. Anyway, it's more certain that it was a was staff, and it's more useful to the reader to link to the article about the staff. So I did that. Thanks for pointing this out. A. Parrot (talk) 18:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Connection with Tanit

This stuff has been in the article for years and I've never cleaned it out. But it looks like unsourced original research, so I've removed it now. In case a source can be found to support it, I'm copying it here.

Symbol for the goddess Ta-nit

It is thought that Neith may correspond to the goddess Tanit, worshipped in north Africa by the early Berber culture (existing from the beginnings of written records) and through the first Punic culture originating from the founding of Carthage by Dido. Ta-nit, meaning in Egyptian the land of Nit, also was a sky-dwelling goddess of war, a virginal mother goddess and nurse, and, less specifically, a symbol of fertility. Her symbol is remarkably similar to the Egyptian ankh and her shrine, excavated at Sarepta in southern Phoenicia, revealed an inscription that related her securely to the Phoenician goddess Astarte (Ishtar). Several of the major Greek goddesses also were identified with Tanit by the syncretic interpretatio graeca, which recognized as Greek deities in foreign guise the gods of most of the surrounding non-Hellene cultures.

A. Parrot (talk) 17:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Reasonable.

I came to comment at the end of the fourth paragraph of section "Symbolism":

It has been suggested the hunt/war features of Neith’s imagery may indicate her origin from Libya, located west and southwest of Egypt, where she was goddess of the combative peoples there.

The problem with this paragraph is that, unlike your thesis, it assumes an extant distinct political and cultural entities of Egypt and Libya at a time when such distinctions wouldn't have yet formed.

It is more likely that at pre-dynastic/pre-historic times the Libyan desert was a still a less hostile habitat, although becoming increasingly arid, where fauna and flora existed - as attested in pre-historic cave paintings - supporting a spectrum of nomadic communities that spread all to the rims of the swamps of the Nile valley. So it is then natural that the precursors of Nieth and TaNit, as well as Amun and Hammon first came into existence, as well as other common symbolism of north Africa such as the feather of the ostrich, not to mention the language itself, where proto-Egyptian and proto-Amazigh were linked. It has been suggested, for example, that the Berber term for "strong man; ruler" might be derived from nsw-bity (Schneider 1993).

--A. Gharbeia (talk) 09:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Bisexual definition

The term "bisexual" as used in the 9th paragraph of the Symbolism section seems confusing. The term is most commonly known today as a sexual preference of both male and female (or no preference), and used less often to describe biologically having characteristics of both genders. Could this be written better as "Hemaphroditic" (having both genders), "Epicene" (having traits of both genders or neither) or "Capable of Parthenogenetic reproduction", as stated in the second paragraph? I'm sure there are other synonyms. Wcichello (talk) 20:42, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I replaced it with "androgynous" for the moment—it's a little more general than "hermaphroditic" and less obscure than "epicene". Feel free to replace it with a different term if you think it works better. A. Parrot (talk) 02:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, it looks good. There is a second instance of bisexual in that paragraph, but it isn't as confusing as the instance that you updated. Thank you again. Wcichello (talk) 19:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Mistake or confusing sentence

"The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) noted that the Egyptian citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped Neith. The Greeks ruled Egypt at the time and they sought to draw a syncretic relationship to associate Egyptian deities with those of Greece." - the latter sentence suggests that the greeks ruled Egypt in the time of Herodotus, which is of course incorrect as Egypt was under the Achaemeneid Empire at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F04:E409:1A00:2C71:4502:50E2:18B4 (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Claimed Berber origin

@Potymkin: I share Lone-078's concern with your edits asserting that Neith was of Berber origin. The most reliable source cited in those edits, the Encyclopédie Berbère article, only says that Neith was "known to the Libyans as early as the 14th century BC", about 1700 years after the first evidence of her worship in Egypt, and makes it sound possible that the Libyans adopted Neith from the Egyptians rather than vice-versa. The next-best source you cite is World History Encyclopedia, whose reliability I've never felt sure of. But in any case, it only says it's possible that Neith was of Libyan origin. The one source that treats a Libyan origin as a certainty is Occult World, which I'm pretty sure is not an RS.

Looking through my resources for coverage of this topic, I found this passage in The Great Goddesses of Egypt (1999) by the Egyptologist Barbara S. Lesko (p. 47): "Hermann Kees describes the northwestern part of the delta as being inhabited primarily by Libyans and points out that during the Old Kingdom Neith was characterized by Egyptians as Neith from Libya, 'as if she was the chieftainess of the neighboring people with whom the inhabitants of the Nile valley were at all times at war.' Other Egyptologists dispute this connection, however, and the first appearance of Neith is purely Egyptian."

Moreover, you seem to be treating "Libyan" and "Berber" as synonyms, but I don't know the scholarly consensus on how closely the Egyptians' western neighbors were related to the modern Berbers. It seems better to use the blanket term "Libyan", which scholars generally apply to the non-Egyptian peoples west of the Nile Valley regardless of time period.

In sum, a Libyan origin for Neith seems to be a possibility but far from a certainty, and where the possibility is mentioned, we should write "Libyan" rather than "Berber". A. Parrot (talk) 08:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

And the source provided for the 8.000 BC claim neither reports such date nor mentions Libya or Berbers. Quoting Richard H. Wilkinson's book The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, "Although she was sometimes called 'Neith of Libya', this reference may simply refer to the proximity of the Libyan region to the goddess's chief province in the west­ern Delta."Lone-078 (talk) 10:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)