Who is Neith? Medusa, or someone else?

[thisplacerocks]

Ok, I know the Cs said not to obsess over "Medusa 11" but I was reading about Egyptian deities and came across Neith, who bear some resemblance to Medusa because she has three heads. Also she is related to balance which is Ma'at in Egyptian. The Cs linked Medusa to heads and balance.

It's interesting that Neith is linked to many ideas mentioned by the Cs. She is linked to the "Great Flood". (Neith )

She is Athena according to Herodotus and Plato. As Laura said, Athena is a mentor god in the hospitality myth. Neith also plays the same role: She watches over Osiris' body to keep it safe from Set. She sides with Osiris' son Horus against Set.

I'm pondering over her association with Ra and Adam:

According to one myth, Neith preceded creation and was present when the waters of Nun began to swirl at her command to give rise to the ben-ben (the primordial mound) upon which Ra (Atum - is this Adam?) stood to complete the task.

She is also sometimes seen as a cow, linking her with Hathor or with the Great Cow who was mother to Ra.

She is linked to the creator and is one of the major deities worshipped in Egypt:

Her name links to the root word for "weave" which carries with it the meaning of "to make exist" or "create" or "to be".

Neith was still recognized as a creative force of enormous power who "created the world by speaking seven magical words" (Pinch, 170). She was closely associated with the creative element of water and was "the personification of the fertile primeval waters" and was "the mother of all snakes and crocodiles" as well as being the "great mother who gave birth to Ra and who instituted giving birth when there had been no childbirth before" (Pinch, 170). In still other myths, it is Neith, not Isis, who is the mother of Horus the divine child and restorer of order.

Wilkinson notes that "the worship of Neith spanned virtually all of Egypt's history and she remained to the end `Neith the Great'" (159). Although many of her attributes were given to Isis and Hathor, as previously noted, her worship never declined.

She is linked to the Veil and immortal life and holds the ankh:

She has a temple with the inscription "I Am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. No Mortal Has Yet Been Able to Life the Veil that Covers Me".

Neith invented birth and gave life to humanity but was also there at a person's death to help them adjust to the new world of the afterlife. She helped to dress the dead and open the way for them to the afterlife and the hope of immortality and paradise in the Field of Reeds.

Her annual festival was celebrated on the 13th day of the 3rd month of summer and was known as The Festival of the Lamps.[...] The lights on earth mirroring the stars helped to part this veil because earth and the heavens would appear the same to both the living and the dead.

She's also a triple goddess Ngame, according to Robert Graves, the author of the White Goddess. Another scholar Corretti identifies Athena, Metis, and Medusa as aspects of an ancient triple Goddess. Metis, ‘the clever one’, is Athena’s mother. Many scholars say Medusa and Metis are one. Medusa derives from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit Medha and the Greek Metis, meaning ‘wisdom’ and ‘intelligence.’ (Medusa and Athena: Ancient Allies in Healing Women’s Trauma by Laura Shannon)