Seshat Wisdom
She Who Presides Over Words, Wisdom, and Historical Records
Due on January 9, 2025! Pre-order here.
This book is a tribute to the goddess Seshat and her important role as a goddess of writing, wisdom, scribes, books, libraries, letters, numbers, architecture, and the stars. It is inspired by my exhibit, Goddess Seshat and Ancient Public History.
She is described by historians and Egyptologists in a myriad of ways. They range from being a funerary goddess who helps people into the afterlife to a purveyor of knowledge through the House of Life. Some descriptions may be related to the different ways she was interpreted in different eras of Egyptian history. Some may be related to the idea that her keen intellect and diverse skills allowed her culture to add more duties onto her divine plate of responsibilities over time.
As a student of Public History, I noted some striking similarities between this ancient goddess and the diverse roles of the modern public historian. I set out to explore this concept and gather ANY history I could find on Seshat. I wanted to create a sacred container to share everything I know and understand about her. When I set out on researching her I felt like an archeologist digging for information because Seshat seemed hidden.
Public history was not a "thing" in ancient times, but Seshat was engaged in recording, preserving, and writing history. It seems that like so many public historians, she quietly did her work behind the scenes. She was not flashy or as well-known as some of her divine counterparts, but her work in the creation of the Egyptian civilization was no less impactful.
She was a powerful goddess of writing, words, wisdom, and scribes, books, libraries, and librarians. But she was also a deity of record-keeping, accounting, census-taking, measurements, and sacred architecture.
In this book, I share my three years of research on Seshat and offer insights and my interpretation of Seshat and her history.