Sekhmet, whose name means “the powerful one,” was a warlike, bloodthirsty goddess. She was usually portrayed as a slender woman with the head of a lioness. As the daughter of the sun-god Re, Sakhmet waged war against both the enemies of the sun-god and the enemies of the king, who was the “physical son of Re.” This head of Sakhmet shows the goddess wearing both the solar disk and the uraeus, the fire-spitting cobra that symbolized kingship (the head of the uraeus is broken off).

In Glencairn’s Ancient Egypt Gallery