The Destruction of Mankind
A bloodthirsty goddess is stopped only when the world is flooded with beer dyed red as blood.
Also: Destruction of Mankind · Book of the Heavenly Cow · Sekhmet · Hathor · Eye of Ra · Ra and humanity
Egyptians told that when humanity plotted against the aged sun god Ra, he sent out a goddess — Hathor in her fierce form, Sekhmet — to destroy them. She slaughtered so many that Ra, repenting, flooded the fields with red-dyed beer; the goddess drank it, grew drunk, and the killing stopped. The tale explains both divine wrath and divine mercy, and Ra's eventual withdrawal from the earth.
In short
A mythic episode (part of the 'Book of the Heavenly Cow') in which the aging sun god Ra, angered by humanity's rebellion, sends the goddess (as Hathor/Sekhmet) to slaughter people, then relents and halts the destruction by a ruse.
Where it’s found
The Book of the Heavenly Cow (New Kingdom royal tombs, Dyn. 18–20)
Read it in the Egyptian texts
The passages in our corpus where this idea is discussed — each opens in our reader with the Egyptian transliteration and the English translation side by side.
How the idea developed across Egypt
Part of the 'Book of the Heavenly Cow,' attested from the New Kingdom (versions in royal tombs of Dyn. 18–20, including Tutankhamun's shrine, the tomb of Seti I, and later copies extending to Ramesses III).
Copies span Dyn. 18–20 (extending to the reign of Ramesses III).