What does the cow mean in ancient Egypt?

Hathor; and the sky itself as a great cow whose belly is the heaven.

What the sign shows: A cow with the sun disk between her horns.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: The mother as the giver of food and drink: earth below, and the water-cow of the northern heaven above.
Where you see it today: The horned head of Hathor tops the columns of her temple at Dendera.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 605 times across the book. Book V, p. 311: “The leg in the northern sky”; Book V, p. 312: “Heaven’s cow and the Milky Way”; Book II, p. 96: “Two kinds of mother”.
Signs that look like it: Hippopotamus, Foreleg of the Bull and Lion. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “The cow represented the earth as giver of food.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book V, p. 252)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Cow. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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