What area did Hathor ruled over??

Question

What area did Hathor ruled over??

Answer 1

I thought it was Egypt.

Answer 2

Hathor is the cow-headed Egyptian goddess of the sky, love, and fertility.

Answer 3

In Egyptian mythology, Hathor (Egyptian for House of Horus) was originally a personification of the Milky Way, which was seen as the milk that flowed from the udders of a heavenly cow.

Hathor was an ancient goddess, worshipped as a cow-deity from at least 2700 BC, during the 2nd dynasty, and possibly even by the Scorpion King.

Due to this, and the name mehturt, she was identified as responsible for the yearly inundation of the Nile.

Another consequence of this name is that she was seen as a herald of imminent birth, as when the amniotic sac breaks and floods its waters, it is a medical indicator that the child is due to be born extremely soon.

Hathor was also favored as a protector in desert regions.

Some Egyptologists associate Hathor with artificial light as evidenced by what has been purported to be a representation of an electric lamp in a temple dedicated to her worship. Though other scholars believe the representation to be that of a lotus flower, spawning a snake within.

Goddess of Motherhood

As a provider of milk, and due to cows careful tending of their calves, the cow was a universal symbol of motherhood, and so Hathor became goddess of motherhood, gaining titles such as 'The Great Cow Who Protects Her Child' and 'Mistress of the Sanctuary of Women.'

Because of the aspect of motherhood, her priests were oracles, predicting the fate of the newborn, and midwives delivering them.

As a mother, since she enclosed the sky, she was seen as the mother of Horus.

Symbolically she became the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was identified as Horus.

The name Hathor refers to the encirclement by her, in the form of the Milky Way, of the night sky and consequently of the god of the sky, Horus.

She was originally seen as the daughter of Ra, the creator whose own cosmic birth was formalised as the Ogdoad cosmogeny.An alternate name for her, which persisted for 3,000 years, was Mehturt (also spelt Mehurt, Mehet-Weret, and Mehet-uret), meaning great flood, a direct reference to her being the milky way.

The Milky Way was seen as a waterway in the heavens, sailed upon by both the sun god and the king, leading the Egyptians to describe it as The Nile in the Sky.