#Chensit

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Khensut

In Egyptian mythology, Chensit (also spelled Khensit), which means placenta, was the patron goddess of the twentieth nome of Lower Egypt. Chensit was the wife of Sopdu and the daughter of Ra, and was depicted as an uraeus.

(Khensyt, Khensit) Khensut is prominent in the ancient city of Per-Soped (Saft el-Henneh) as the consort of its primary God, Soped. She is apparently mentioned in utterance 301 of the Pyramid Texts, an address to the rising sun, in which it is said, “You [the sun] shall raise up the king’s ka [vitality, spirit-double] for him at his side, even as this khensut-wig of yours mounted up to you.” Some have disputed a reference to the Goddess in this reference to a type of hairstyle or wig, but it would accord with other existing references to Khensut in which she is associated with the royal diadem: “Khensut who is upon the head of Re, great of decisions as Judge,” (Barguet 1950, 3). At Saft el-Henneh she is similarly “Khensut who is upon the head of Soped,” (ibid.). In an inscription from the temple of Horus at Edfu, it appears that Khensut is associated with the two plumes on Soped’s headdress, for in a passage concerning the “consecration of the double-plume” it states, “O Horus, your two eyes are given to you so that you are provided with them, O Soped, provided with your Khensut,” (ibid., 4). A reference to Khensut has also been alleged in CT spells 137 and 142 (again disputed), in which she is responsible for a decree reuniting the deceased with his/her family; in the similar CT spell 134, which does not mention her by name, she is perhaps referred to as “mistress of the crowns/ornaments” (nebet khâu; alternately, “lady of appearances,” i.e., when the king appears on the throne or in procession, from the verb khâi, ‘to rise [like the sun]’, in which regard note Soped’s identification with the east and the rising sun). In her apparent association with the executive acts, so to speak, which give order to the cosmos and secure justice for mortals, Khensut may be said to battle Seth: “Khensut the Great seizes you [Seth], her flame has power over your body,” (Barguet 1950, 5). Khensut is depicted anthropomorphically, usually in the manner of Hathor, with the headdress of a solar disk between bovine horns, or sometimes wearing the plume of Ma’et.

Barguet, Paul. 1950. “La Déesse Khensout.” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 49: 1-7. Faulkner, R. O. 1969. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [PT] Faulkner, R. O. 1973-8. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. 3 vols. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd. [CT]

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