nephtys

Nephthys

Nebt-het, or Nephthys, was the daughter of Seb and Nut, and the sister of Osiris, and Isis, and Set, and the wife of Set, and the mother of Anpu, or Anubis, either by Osiris or Set. The name "Nebt-het" means the "lady of the house," but by the word "house" we must understand that portion of the sky which was supposed to form the abode of the Sun-god Horus; in fact "het" in the name of Nebt-het is used in exactly the same sense as "het" in the name "Het-Hert," or Hathor, i.e., the "house of Horus." In the earliest times Nephthys was regarded as the female counterpart of Set, and she was always associated with him; nevertheless she always appears as the faithful sister and friend of Isis, and helps the widowed goddess to collect the scattered limbs of Osiris and to reconstitute his body. In the Pyramid Texts she appears as a friend of the deceased, and she maintains that character throughout every Recension of the Book of the Dead; indeed, she seems to perform for him what as a nature goddess she did for the gods in primeval times when she fashioned the "body" of the "Company of the Gods," and when she obtained the name Nebkhat, i.e., "Lady of the body {of the Gods}." The goddess is represented in the form of a woman who wears upon her head a pair of horns and a disk which is surmounted by the symbol of her name, or the, " symbol only; and her commonest titles are, "dweller within Senu," "lady of heaven," "mistress of the gods," "great goddess, lady of life," "sister of the god, eye of Ra, lady of heaven, mistress of the gods," "lady of heaven, mistress of the two lands," "sister of the god, the creative goddess who liveth within An," etc. The chief centres of her worship were Senu, Hebet, (Behbit), Per-mert, Re-nefert, Het-sekhem, Het-Khas, Ta-kehset, and Diospolites.