Rosetta Stone in Three Lingui

Sirius is colloquially known as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog).^[19] The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean.

Sopdet

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Sothis" redirects here. For the star, see Sirius. For the Fire Emblem character, see Sothis (Fire Emblem).

Sopdet
Sopdet in red dress, with star on her head
Name in hieroglyphs	[1][2][a]
Symbol	Sirius; dog (Ptolemaic/Roman)
Consort	Sah (Orion); Osiris
Offspring	Sopdu (Venus); Horus

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Sopdet is the ancient Egyptian name of the star Sirius and its personification as an Egyptian goddess. Known to the Greeks as Sothis, she was conflated with Isis as a goddess and Anubis as a god.

Names[edit]

The exact pronunciation of ancient Egyptian is uncertain, as vowels were not recorded until a very late period. In modern transcription, her name usually appears as Sopdet (Spdt,^[3] lit. 'Triangle' or 'Sharp One'), after the known Greek and Latin form Sothis (Σῶθις, Sō̂this).

History[edit]

The tablet's engravings were believed to discuss the bull-formed Sopdet.

During the early period of Egyptian civilization, the heliacal rising of the bright star preceded the usual annual flooding of the Nile.^[8] It was therefore apparently used for the solar civil calendar which largely superseded the original lunar calendar in the 3rd millennium BC. Despite the wandering nature of the Egyptian calendar, the erratic timing of the flood from year to year, and the slow procession of Sirius within the solar year, Sopdet continued to remain central to cultural depictions of the year and to celebrations of Wep Renpet (Wp Rnpt), the Egyptian New Year. She was also venerated as a goddess of the fertility brought to the soil by the flooding.

She was long thought to be represented by the cow on an ivory tablet from the reign of Djer (Dynasty I),^[8] but this is no longer supported by most Egyptologists.^[9] During the Old Kingdom, she was an important goddess of the annual flood and a psychopomp guiding deceased pharaohs through the Egyptian underworld. During the Middle Kingdom, she was primarily a mother and nurse and, by the Ptolemaic period, she was almost entirely subsumed into Isis.^[10]

Myths[edit]

Sirius (bottom) and Orion (right). Together, the three brightest stars of the northern winter sky—Sirius, Betelgeuse (top right), and Procyon (top left)—can also be understood as forming the Winter Triangle.

Sopdet is the consort of Sah, the personified constellation of Orion near Sirius. Their child Venus^[1] was the hawk god Sopdu,^[8] "Lord of the East".^[11] As the "bringer of the New Year and the Nile flood", she was associated with Osiris from an early date^[8] and by the Ptolemaic period Sah and Sopdet almost solely appeared in forms conflated with Osiris^[12] and Isis.^[10]