Sopdet
Egyptian · deity · old kingdom · deity
Sopdet starts the year. Sirius drops below the horizon for about seventy days and then comes back, rising just ahead of the sun, and in Egypt that morning fell near the start of the inundation — so the brightest star in the sky was also the annual announcement that the country was about to be fed. The calendar was dated from it. Seventy days is also how long an embalming takes, which is not a coincidence: the star goes away, stays away the proper length of time, and comes back, and a body is supposed to do the same.
Children
Domains
- stars
- inundation
Powers
- to reappear at dawn after seventy days and open the year
Relations
Sources
- Pyramid Texts.
- Reference treatments of Sopdet, of Sirius and of the Egyptian calendar.