Le feste del “ritorno della natura” nell’Egitto antico.

Abstract

From the hieroglyphic texts engraved on the walls of temples of the Ptolemaic period we know the myth which told how the goddess “Eye-of-the Sun”, the daughter of Ra (Hathor, Tefnout, Sekhmet, Mut, Nebtu, Iusas, and Isis) left Egypt to escape in the region of Bughem in Ethiopia, after taking the appearance of a “Cat”; the god Thoth convinced the goddess to return home and bring back the joy and abundance. The “Myth of the Eye of the Sun” is known from a version in demotic, in form of dialogue between the Eye of the Sun or “ Ethiopian Cat “ and Thoth, the “Small Cynocephalus”. The recognition of the goddess as the agent of the vegetation after the winter break, as can find similarities between the shape of the Eye of the Sun and that of the Greek Demeter.