The Seven Wise Women of Egypt
Seven Sages and a Royal Mystery
The title The Seven Wise Women of Egypt is not the usual ancient name for a known group. The figures that best match it are the Seven Hathors, seven goddesses who appear in Egyptian stories and announce a newborn child’s fate. They are forms or companions of Hathor, a major goddess of love, music, joy, motherhood and the sky. Calling them wise women makes their role easy to picture, but I would label them the Seven Hathors on a history page so readers learn the attested name.
They appear most clearly in two New Kingdom tales. In The Tale of Two Brothers, the gods ask Khnum to create a companion for Bata. When the new woman is made, the Seven Hathors come to see her and declare that she will die by the knife. Their words establish a danger hanging over the rest of her story. They do not explain why this must happen, and the characters do not simply cancel the prophecy.
The Seven Hathors also visit the baby prince in The Tale of the Doomed Prince. His royal parents have waited a long time for a child. At his birth, the goddesses announce that he will die through a crocodile, a snake or a dog. The horrified king has a safe house built in the desert, but the prince eventually leaves to seek his own life. He survives a snake and faces dangers involving a crocodile and his beloved dog. Unfortunately, the surviving papyrus breaks off before the ending, so we do not know which fate finally wins, or whether he escapes them all.These scenes show the Seven Hathors as speakers of destiny rather than advisers who teach lessons. They resemble a divine group arriving at a birth to state the path already allotted to the child. Ancient Egyptians had several ideas about fate, lifetime and fortune, and these became especially visible in later periods. The tales do not give us a complete rulebook explaining exactly how much freedom a person had after the Seven Hathors spoke. ⬅ Back
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