The Destruction of Mankind

In the earliest times, Ra, the sun god, ruled over both gods and mortals as king. He walked among his creations, and his light brought life to all the land of Egypt. But Ra was growing old, and his human subjects began to whisper. They saw his age, saw his limbs grow weak and his step falter, and some began to plot rebellion.

Ra heard of their schemes, for nothing escapes the All-Seeing Eye. He called a council of the gods in secret, summoning Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, and Nun, the primordial waters from which he had emerged. "Look upon my children," Ra said. "Those I created from my own Eye now conspire against me. What shall I do with them?"

Nun spoke: "Send forth your Eye against them. Let your daughter smite those who plot evil."

Ra's Eye took the form of Hathor, the gentle goddess of love and beauty. But Hathor transformed, her gentle aspect falling away to reveal Sekhmet, the lioness, the most terrible of all the gods. Her breath was hot desert wind, her mane a crown of fire, her eyes blazing with divine fury.

Sekhmet fell upon humanity with the fury of a hundred storms. The deserts ran red with blood, and her roar shook the pillars of heaven. She was wrath incarnate, and she exulted in her slaughter.

Sekhmet descended upon the rebellious mortals in Upper Egypt, where they had fled into the desert to escape Ra's judgment. She tore them apart with claws of bronze, drank their blood like wine, and waded through the carnage laughing. When night fell, she returned to Ra to report her victory.

"I have been mighty among them," she declared. "Their blood is sweet."

Ra looked upon his daughter and saw that something had changed. The killing had awakened a hunger in Sekhmet that would not be easily satisfied. She spoke of returning at dawn to finish what she had started, to slay every mortal who remained. But Ra's anger had cooled. He had not meant to destroy all humanity, only to punish the plotters.

"It is enough," he said. But Sekhmet did not hear. Her eyes were distant, already imagining the blood she would spill with the coming sun.

Ra understood that even he could not simply command Sekhmet to stop. Her nature had been unleashed, and nature cannot be denied. He would have to use cunning where force would fail.

Through the night, Ra's servants worked in frantic haste. He ordered seven thousand jars of beer to be brewed, and into the beer they mixed red ochre from Elephantine until it gleamed crimson, indistinguishable from blood. Before dawn, they poured the mixture into the fields where Sekhmet would hunt.

When the lioness goddess descended at sunrise, ready to continue her slaughter, she saw the fields flooded with what appeared to be blood. Delighted, she drank deeply. Three times she waded through the crimson pools, and the beer entered her veins. Her eyes grew heavy. Her roar softened to a purr.

Sekhmet, the destroyer of mankind, fell into a deep, drunken sleep.

When she awoke, the bloodlust had faded. Hathor's gentler nature returned, and she could not remember the full extent of her rampage. Ra welcomed his daughter back and declared that from this day forward, the festival of Hathor would be celebrated with great quantities of red beer, so that her terrible thirst would be satisfied without the spilling of blood.

Mankind survived, chastened but alive. Ra, weary of the troubles of rulership, ascended to the sky to journey across it each day in his solar bark, leaving the governance of Egypt to the gods who came after. But in every drought, in every plague, in every scorching summer wind, Egyptians remembered Sekhmet and knew that the Eye of Ra could always turn its fury upon them once more.