Bat

Bat is on the Narmer Palette and then she is gone. The frontal cow-faces at the top of that object — the founding image of the unified Egyptian state — are generally read as hers, which makes her one of the earliest identifiable gods in the country; and within a millennium Hathor, who does the same job with the same animal in the next district over, has taken her cult, her face and her instrument. The one surviving difference is the horns. Bat's turn in; Hathor's turn out.

Domains

• cattle

Relations

• counterpart of: HathorAbsorbed into Hathor, who takes the cow, the face and the sistrum. The one tell that survives is the horns: Bat's curl inward, Hathor's outward, and on very early objects it is the inward pair.Reference treatment of the absorption of Bat's cult by Hathor by the Middle Kingdom. (secondary)

Sources

• Bat is an early Egyptian cow goddess of the seventh Upper Egyptian nome, shown as a frontal face with cow's ears and inward-curling horns, whose cult was absorbed by Hathor by the Middle Kingdom.: Reference treatments of Bat, of her emblem and of her absorption into Hathor. (secondary)