Egyptian Gods

Qetesh was a Goddess of Ecstasy and Sexual Pleasure, originally from Syrian. She was worshipped in Egypt from 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. Her name Qetesh also spelled as Kodesh, Qudshu, Qodesh or Qadesh, whose name means ‘holy woman’.

Her appearance portrayed as a naked woman standing on the back of a lion wearing a headdress of a sun disk which hold in by the cow horns. She holds snakes in her right hand and lotus flowers in her left hand. Sometimes, she also depicted as a naked woman standing on lions between Min, the God of Fertility of Egypt and Resheph, the god of Thunder of Syria offering them medicinal gifts of herbs and snakes.

According to myth, her husband was the god Resheph, who was introduced in the Middle Kingdom to Egypt and the mother of the god Min.

Qetesh also associated with Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love and Astarte, the Canaan goddess of warrior. She combines Asherah’s symbol of the pubic triangle with Hathor’s frontal pose and Asherah’s wisdom with Hathor’s competence.

Some scholars have suggested that she was a distinct goddess and that the connection with prostitution is due to early mistranslations of biblical texts. They suggest that actually the word related to temple staff, and held no sexual association.