{
  "id": "sekhmet",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Sekhmet",
  "summary": "The destroying aspect of the Eye of Ra — \"Hathor-Sekhmet\", who waded three nights in the blood of men — and the goddess of pestilence whom a king's terror is compared to and whom the wise are warned not to provoke as \"the Lady of the Plague\". Attested only in the Egyptian texts; neither Herodotus nor Plutarch names her.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "egyptian",
    "deities",
    "goddesses",
    "plague",
    "destruction"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "ra"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "hathor"
    },
    {
      "rel": "discussed_in",
      "target": "egyptian-gods-list"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who is Sekhmet?",
    "Is Sekhmet the same as Hathor?",
    "Why is Sekhmet a goddess of plague?",
    "Does Herodotus or Plutarch mention Sekhmet?",
    "Is Sekhmet a lion goddess?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "In the Destruction of Mankind the Eye that Ra sends out is named Hathor when summoned, but once the killing begins \"for three nights the goddess Hathor-Sekhmet waded about in the blood of men, the slaughter beginning at Hensu (Herakleopolis Magna)\" — the one legend here that joins the two names (Budge Lit. ch. VII).",
      "sources": [
        "budge-literature-ancient-egyptians"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "In the Story of Sanehat the chief Ammuiansha asks, of the dead king, \"What will become of the land without that beneficent god the terror of whom passed through the lands like the goddess Sekhmet in a year of pestilence?\" (Budge Lit. ch. X).",
      "sources": [
        "budge-literature-ancient-egyptians"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The Educated Peasant warns the avaricious steward: \"Set not out [to do evil] for the Lady of the Plague (i.e. Sekhmet) ... If thou wilt not do it [then] she will not show compassion\" (Budge Lit. ch. X).",
      "sources": [
        "budge-literature-ancient-egyptians"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.88
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "In the famine inscription of Sahal the king, seeking the source of the Nile, wishes \"to go to [consult] the Chief of Het-Sekhmet, whose beneficence strengtheneth all men in their works\" — a House of Sekhmet as a seat of learning (Budge Lit. ch. VII, Legend of Khnemu).",
      "sources": [
        "budge-literature-ancient-egyptians"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Neither Greek witness names her. The nearest Plutarch comes is the lion: the Egyptians \"hold the Lion in honour, and they adorn the doorways of their shrines with gaping lions' heads, because the Nile overflows when for the first time the Sun comes into conjunction with Leo\" (Plut. Is. 38) — a solar and seasonal reason, with no goddess attached.",
      "sources": [
        "plutarch-isis-osiris"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Her identity with Hathor rests on one compound name in one legend — 'Hathor-Sekhmet' — and that is the passage to quote.",
    "The Egyptian narrative and wisdom texts use her as the measure of terror and plague, which is her attested domain here.",
    "The lioness form is not in these witnesses; Plutarch's lions belong to the Nile and the Sun in Leo."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "Is Sekhmet the same as Hathor?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why is Sekhmet a goddess of plague?",
      "claim": "c2"
    },
    {
      "q": "Does Herodotus or Plutarch mention Sekhmet?",
      "claim": "c5"
    },
    {
      "q": "Is Sekhmet a lion goddess?",
      "claim": "c5"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Pages give Sekhmet a lioness head and a temple at Memphis. This object keeps to what four Egyptian texts in Budge's translation say — the compound name, the pestilence, the Lady of the Plague — and marks the lion as unattested in the witnesses read.",
  "confidence": 0.87,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "egyptian",
      "kind": "deity",
      "group": "other",
      "domains": [
        "plague",
        "slaughter",
        "the Eye of Ra",
        "royal terror"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q146104"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/sekhmet",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/sekhmet.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Sekhmet",
    "description": "The destroying aspect of the Eye of Ra — \"Hathor-Sekhmet\", who waded three nights in the blood of men — and the goddess of pestilence whom a king's terror is compared to and whom the wise are warned not to provoke as \"the Lady of the Plague\". Attested only in the Egyptian texts; neither Herodotus nor Plutarch names her.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/sekhmet",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride) — tr. William Baxter, rev. W. W. Goodwin (1874), Perseus TEI edition",
        "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0007/tlg089/tlg0007.tlg089.perseus-eng3.xml"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "E. A. Wallis Budge, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (1914), Project Gutenberg #15932 via GITenberg",
        "url": "https://github.com/GITenberg/The-Literature-of-the-Ancient-Egyptians_15932/blob/master/15932.txt"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Sekhmet"
  }
}