Neith

is the name of the female divinity of wisdom among the ancient Egyptians. Her name, which means "I came from myself," leads to the supposition that she was an impersonation of nature. She was chiefly worshipped in the Delta, where a city was built bearing her name. Her temple, the largest in Egypt, was at Sais, the kings of which called themselves her sons. It was open to the sky, and bore an inscription, "I am all that was, and is, and is to be; no mortal has lifted up my veil, and the fruit which I brought forth is the sun." Ranking next to Ptah, the most exalted of Egyptian divinities, she is to the female deities what Ptah (q.v.) is to the male; and indeed so closely are the functions of the two commingled or confounded in some representations of them that Neith may be briefly defined as the female counterpart of the great demiun rgus. Ptah is the primary paternal element in nature, Neith the primary conceptire element. He is the father of the sun, she is the mother of the same luminary, and one of her titles is consequently "the great co-engenderer of the sun" (Bunsen, 1:386; Kenrick, 1:390). Ptah is the primordial fire, while Neith is the primordial space or chaos, self-producing, coeternal with him, and co-equal; or, in other words, the "feminine ether" everywhere diffused as the material basis of all forms of created existence. Neith is called also Muth, the universal mother and queen of heaven. Neith wears the red crown of Lower Egypt, indicating the proper seat of her worship; but her monuments are found in the upper region also. By reversing her hieroglyphic signs NT (i.e., by reading them in the European instead of the Asiatic manner), may have been formed Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, which city was supposed to have been founded from Sais. The owl, her favorite bird, is also found upon the coinage of the Delta; but the virgin mother of Egypt seems to have had little else in common with the Minerva who sprang full armed from the brain of Jupiter. SEE MINERVA. A statue of Neith is preserved in the Egyptian Room of the British Museum. Neith is generally represented in green, a sign that she was connected with the under world, and invisible to mortals; a festival of "Burning Lamps" was held in her honor. See Bunsen, Egypt's Place in History, volume 1; Kenrick, Anc. Egypt under the Pharaohs, volume 1; Rouge, in Revue Archeologique (huitieme annee), page 40 sq.; Hardwick, Christ and other Masters, 2:248 sq.; Baur, Symbolik und Mythologie, volume 2, part 1, page 43; Trevor, Ancient Egypt, pages 134, 187, 152.