Hebdomads /ˈheb.do.mas/
hebdomas (genitive hebdomadis); f, third declensionConsists of Seven things or persons
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The seven cows uniformly depicted and with the solar disk and plumes of Hathor with whom they were
frequently associated. Third Intermediate Period. Papyrus of Nestanebettawy. Egyptian Museum. Cairo.
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While the number six does not seem to have held great symbolic significance for the Egyptians, the number seven is frequently found and, as the sum of three and four, may have been believed to embody the combined significance of these two numbers - plurality and totality. The number seven is therefore, not surprisingly, associated with deities in different ways. The sun god Ra was said to have seven bau or souls, and several other deities were considered to be "sevenfold" or to have seven forms.
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| Hebdomad of the Seven Divine Cows, differentiated and named with their bull, vignette to Chapter 148, Book of the Dead of Maiherpri. 18th Dynasty. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. |
The company of gods revered at Abydos comprised seven gods, for example, and it is also probably not coincidental that the number of the 42 judges who sat in the tribunal of the afterlife to judge the deceased was a multiple of seven. The seven cows found in Chapter 148 of the Book of the Dead also provide a good example of this kind of group. While these bovines were sometimes identified as aspects of the goddess Hathor as the so-called "seven Hathors" and individually named as "Manion of Kas", "Silent One", "She whose name has power", and "Storm in the sky", they usually bear no clear association other than that of their own grouping and the fact that they fulfilled a cosmic role as goddess of fate.
