She Who Scrivens

Honoring the Brilliance of the Egyptian Goddess of Words and Measurements

This book is a tribute to the goddess Seshat and to her important role as a goddess of writing, wisdom, scribes, books, libraries, books, letters, numbers, architecture, and the stars. It is inspired by my exhibit, Goddess Seshat and Ancient Public History.

 

As a student of Public History, I find that there are striking similarities between this ancient goddess and the diverse roles of the modern public historian. Thus, I set out to explore this concept, but this exhibit is meant to also report on ANY history I could find on Seshat. I wanted to create a sacred container to share everything I know and understand about her because when I set out on researching her I felt like an archeologist digging for information. Unlike the more famous goddesses of the Egyptian pantheon -- Auset, Maat, Hathor, Sekhmet, and Bast -- Seshat seemed hidden.

 

She did not have her own temples, and she did not have a particular creation story or mythology. I knew Seshat was a writing deity, but I did not know much else about her history and place in the Egyptian pantheon. I felt called to research her and find out all I could. One of the first things I learned was that one of her monikers is she who scrivens, which translates to she who writes. As an author of many books, and as someone who is always writing, I related to that! Then I discovered her name literally meant "female scribe." I really related to that!

But where had she been hiding all these years that I have been writing about the Divine Feminine?

 

Unable to travel to Egypt during the Pandemic and due to health concerns, I scoured every avenue of research into Egyptian history, artifacts, and collections around the world. I took dozens of classes, online tours, and found as many temples as I could that had her image. I filled my library with any book that had a morsel of information or mention of her. A researcher friend in Egypt helped by identifying temple locations and getting some

 

I came to see that she was a powerful goddess of writing, words, wisdom, and scribes and that she was affiliated with books, libraries, and librarians. I also came to know she was a deity of record-keeping, accounting, census-taking, measurements, and sacred architecture.

 

Seshat hails from a huge and powerful pantheon of gods and goddesses and has deep roots in ancient Egypt as a guide to scribes, a blessed divine presence to royalty, and even as a friend to the dead. But she is not as famous as other members of her divine tribe. In this book, I share my three years of research on Seshat and offer insights and my interpretation of Seshat and her history.

 

Coming in 2024. See more books!