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Mehet-Weret (Mehetweret, Mehitweret, Mehit-Weret, Methyer, Mehueret, Mehturt,
Meh-Urt) was the goddess of streaming water, a goddess related
to creation and to rebirth. Her name means "Great Flood" or "Great
Tide", linking her with water and the primeval waters of Nun. In the
Old Kingdom, she was believed to have helped the pharaoh and Re
reach the sky, by way of the Nile in the underworld.
"I behold Ra who was born yesterday from the thighs of the goddess
Mehet-Weret; his strength is my strength, and my strength is his
strength." Who is this? "Mehet-Weret is the great Celestial Water, but
others say that Mehet-Weret is the image of the Eye of Ra at dawn at
his birth daily. "[Others, however, say that] Mehet-Weret is the Wedjat
(Eye of Horus or Ra)."
-- The Book of the Dead
She was pictured as a cow, lying on a reed mat, or as a woman with
the head of a cow, or as a beautiful woman. Often she was depicted
wearing the sun disk headdress between her horns. She also sometimes is shown wearing a
Menat. (The menat, a necklace with a special counterweight, is not actually jewelry - it is a musical instrument sacred to
Hathor.)
As a goddess of water, she not only traveled on the water, taking the
pharaoh or sun god with her, but she was thought to be able bring
life-giving water to Egypt. She was a goddess of the yearly inundation
of the Nile River, as indicated by her name, and so was linked to both the
Nile in Egypt, and the Nile in the underworld, and the Nile in the sky
(the Milky Way). Mehet-Weret was a goddess of the waters of Nun, from which the sun god emerged, and was known as the Mother of
Re
(Ra).
In the age of the Pyramids, Mehet-Weret represented the waterway in the heavens, sailed upon by both the sun god and the king.
-- Mehet-Weret, TourEgypt
 As a goddess of rebirth, she was not only thought to give birth to the
sun daily, but she was thought to be able to help with rebirth into the
afterlife. There is a funerary bed in the tomb
of Tutankhamen, in the
form of the goddess Mehet-Weret. The body may have been placed on the
bed to ensure a connection with Mehet-Weret and her ability to give
birth in the underworld. From the 18th Dynasty onwards, Mehet-Weret was
the patron goddess of the necropolis at Waset
(Thebes) and was depicted
in funerary papyri as a cow standing in papyrus plants at the foot of
the mountains of the West, only her head poking out. Hathor was also depicted in the same manner.
She was a celestial cow goddess and, as such, she was linked to both Hathor
and Nut, who were also depicted as great cow goddesses of the sky. Like Nut, she was thought to give daily birth to the sun. She was closely linked to
Nit,
who was depicted as a cow goddess of creation and known as 'The Cow Who
Gave Birth to Ra'. When Mehen-Weret gave birth to Re
at creation, she
was thought to have put him, in the form of a sun disk, between her
horns, which is why she is shown wearing the headdress
of Hathor.
In Tebas a city near Ipet-Resyt (Luxor)/Ipet-Isut
(Karnak), she was
believed to be the mother of the local deities, known as  "the Seven
Wise People".
That Hathor is identified with Mehet-Weret is certain by references of the two as one in The Book of the Dead
(Spell 186) where both are referred to as the  wdjat
(Wedjat, or "Eye of Horus"). However, this ancient cow goddess appears
to have had no independent cult of her own, and was likely a conceptual
figure of primeval creation; it is presumed that Hathor
absorbed most
of her sky attributes as early as the Old
Kingdom, as exhibited by the
many references of the two as identical in both the Pyramid and
Coffin Texts.
-- The Guiding Feminine: Goddesses of Ancient Egypt - The Goddess Hathor, InScription - Journal of Ancient Egypt
She was a goddess originally from Zau
(Sau, Sai, Sais) and liked to Nit
at Iunyt (Esna). She was written about in the
Pyramid
Texts, the Coffin Texts and in The Book of the Dead. She had no known following, although she was an ancient goddess, possibly from
pre-dynastic times. It is possible that any early cult of Mehet-Weret changed to that of
Hathor, when she was fused to
 the goddess of love.
A
goddess of water, of creation and of rebith, Mehet-Weret had a number
of attributes connected to other major goddesses of the Egyptian
religion. Though the was originally a goddess with her own creation
mythos, her attributes were taken over by these other deities. Despite
this, she was still important enough to be depicted in Egyptian
tombs,
on funerary papyri, and written in different books relating to the
afterlife and to the course of the sun. Her name was still in use even
into the Greek period, and so she had to have been a popular goddess
though ancient Egyptian history.
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