The Ancient Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet has a fascinating double role as both a vengegeful deity of destruction — especially bringing plague — but also a force that was thought to ward off disease. Her name can mean “The Mighty One” but she was also called the “Mistress of Dread.”. A particularly entertaining myth associated with Sekhmet was the time the God Ra sent her as his servant to inflict destruction on humans who were going against him. Sekhmet performed her job all too well, and grew into a blood-rage as her violence seemed unstoppable, with humanity’s very existence threatened.
Ra ended up stopping Sekhmet only through trickery: he knew she was after blood, so he dyed a bunch of beer red, and with this Sekhmet was successfully lured into a drunken stupor, stopping her destruction at last.
Source(s): Image from the second-century Temple of Kom Ombo, cited by https//:girlmuseum.com, May 26, 2017, Mythological Girls: Sekhmet.
