Hathor Rising: The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt Paperback – June 1, 1997

As a devotee of the Goddess Hathor, I had been searching for a book just about Her. There are many Egyptian booksthat mention Hathor, but it was difficult to find one that is dedicated sorely to Her.In my continued spiritual search, Hathor is the anchor to my foundation. After years of studying many years ofdifferent spiritual cultures and their paths, the Greek/Egyptian pantheon is the one where I find the true way for mysoul. After a trip to my spiritual homeland of Egypt, our spiritual tour stopped at the temple at Dendera. The finalgateway was opened, Hathor Herself. After my own encounter with Love Herself, I am Hers.Looking for books on this Goddess of Love put my search-bar on my computer on overdrive. The very best book on Hathoris this book, "Hathor Rising." If you are doing research on Her, or like me, trying to absorb everything you can findabout this Goddesss, this book will not disappoint you. Hopefully, more books will be written about Her. But for now, this is the one.

Good

Instead of concentrating solely on Hathor, the author goes off discussing several pharaohs & male gods. But as I find Akhenaten the most interesting of the pharaohs, I did enjoy the 3 chapters she devoted to him. I just thought the main emphasis should have been on Hathor.

Fantastic book. Lots of great info here and can highly recommend it to everyone interested in Egypt and the Goddess.

Very Good Historical Book

Although it's named for Hathor and focuses on her, this book is really about the roles of female deities in general. It draws most of its evidence from a limited period, the early New Kingdom. Subjects include the myth of the Eye of Ra, a companion to the sun god that can be equated with many goddesses, including Hathor; the role of Hathor in the sun god's journey through the daytime sky; the role of Mut in the Theban triad of gods with her husband Amun and son Khonsu; Isis as a companion to Min and Amun; Isis' role in the struggle between Horus and Seth; and the ambiguous position of female divinity in Akhenaten's religious revolution. All those are worthy subjects, but Roberts talks about the background for each of them in a little too much depth, so the common thread of the goddess' role is more difficult to follow than it should be. And she never draws a general conclusion out of the individual examples, so it's hard to get a bead on how goddesses were perceived overall.A follow-up to this book, My Heart My Mother, addresses the role of goddesses in the late New Kingdom and in afterlife beliefs. However, a full discussion of female divinity in ancient Egypt would have to cover the Late and Ptolemaic periods, when temple rites were increasingly focused on family triads of deities and the birth of divine children, and therefore gave goddesses higher standing than they had in New Kingdom times.

I love this book. It's not just about Hathor, but many of her aspects/aliases. It's obvious the author is a scholar, with many references to illustrations and other egyptologists works.I loved how many illustrations there are, including photos. As an armchair Egyptologist, this is a wonderful resource. As a Kemetic priestess, this is invaluable. I have many books about ancient Egypt, and this is one of my favorites.

Dr. Roberts has a deep understanding of the core structures of Egyptian religion, and in particular the Goddess dynamic and its fundamental importance in that system. I noticed an earlier reviewer that stated that Massey, Kuhn and Schwaller de Lubicz understood Egyptian Religion, and that this author did not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those three men saw Egyptian religion in terms of the continuation of some vast and ancient tradition from the Golden or Hyperborean Age, rather than looking at Egypt on its own terms. I have even seen one author who went so far as to state that the Egyptians only passed along knowledge that they did not understand! Another author said that the Greeks and Romans, being closer in time to Ancient Egypt than we are, possessed a more valid understanding than we can ever have at the present. Again, such attitudes denigrate the realization and understanding within that civilization and allow for overlays that do not have any basis from an archaeological viewpoint, to say nothing of a religious or spiritual viewpoint.One has to look at the dynamics of Egyptian religion in terms of its own expression and interpretation of reality, rather than imposing one's own interpretation. In a list of of twenty-five books essential for building an introductory knowledge base of Egyptian religion, I would rate this about #12. The books by R.A. and Isha de Lubicz would be somewhere around #30 and off the bottom of the list.