Defining NETER

-GODDESS AS PREEMINENT DIVINITY-

UPDATED FEB. 5, 2026 9:32 A.M.

DEFINING NETER | Goddess NEITH As The Original NETER

As of date FEB. 5, 2026, the PTs (to be henceforth called "The Writing On The Wall") are the oldest known corpus of religious formulae in existence. Because of this fact, I am of the confident opinion that Egypt can be considered the birthplace of formalized religion. If religion can be regarded a consequence of seeking answers to the most profound questions ever contemplated --- “Where do we come from; what’s our purpose, how do we fulfill it; and what happens after we die?” --- then the logical point from which to proceed would be that amazing creature called Woman, and a time in ancient past that preceded our knowledge and understanding of the procreative process. Without an instinctual ability to make the connection between coitus and biological reproduction, all primitive people could say about the phenomenon was that human life emerged from the body of females. They were the creators. And if this act was reserved for the ultimate source of power, this made them Goddesses!

It can be proven that the oldest temples in Egypt were consecrated to Goddesses. Therefore, it should be possible, through analygical reasoning, to demonstrate an equation between the Goddess and the term Neter. I begin by making a comparison with the word Erpat . The er¹ is here used to signify "(the) 'chief' or 'great'² (hereditary ancestor of the pat). As for Net, or more correctly in this instance, Ne-t, we have the feminine aspect of Being, as a manifestation of the divine, variously rendered as N, En, Ne, On, and No. We finally arrive at an etymology of: " 'chief' or 'great' (divine) female being," i.e., a Goddess!

In Plato’s description of On, as that “... which is and never knew beginning,” we can see an obvious semantic derivative of "All that was, is, and shall ever be." --- The divine attributes attached to the Goddess Neith, variously spelt Net³, Nut, and Niwt.

If you were to establish a fundamental theorem of Goddess As Preeminent Divinity, you could deductively trace the evolution of primitive, Egyptian religion. It would present itself initially as a belief system based upon their ignorance of the procreative process. Not only would this lack of knowledge prompt them to regard woman as goddess, but it would simultaneously give birth to the idea of the resurrection of the dead. Imagine this: A woman has copulated with a man. A few days later the man is eaten alive by a roaming predator. The people from his village have witnessed the gruesome scene in horror. Nine months later, the woman gives birth to the son of the deceased father. As time goes by, the villagers begin to notice that the more that the child grows the more it begins to look exactly like its deceased father. Somehow, through this women, a dead man has returned to life. Equally baffling would be the apparent replication of those still living. Nevertheless, all the more reasons to worship and protect her by all means possible! Mind you, the mother of this miracle child is just as mystified as everyone else.

At some point in time, however, someone came to the realization that it takes 2 to tango. Let's suppose woman was the first of the two sexes to connect the dots. Let's reason that the high probability of it resides in the fact that it's she who's represented by the instruments of both war and the hunt. She is literally the matriarch of the hunting culture. Then, further in time, man was taught the secret, or he solved the mystery on his own. In any event, he's become wise to his role in the creative process. Yet way before he styled himself Self-Begotten, he was perfectly aware that he was formed in the belly of a woman, as if in a shelter of protection, before coming forth into the external world. This understanding of their mutual dependency is reflected in the predynastic relationship between Neith and Min.

From Neith we derive our first textual evidence of the Egyptian Queen. let me now address the matter of its king who, we've been told, went by the title Nesut. With equal earnest Egyptian history informs us that marrying a royal woman (princess or queen) was a primary way for a male to legitimize his claim to the throne, especially if he wasn't a direct heir. The sacred rite of marriage was the traditional way to inherit the divine blood. We see that the practice was faithfully observed by the first kings of the united Egypt. Why do we assume that Upper Egypt waged an aggressive war of conquest against Lower Egypt? Where is it written that this was the case? Why couldn't the two lands have been cooperating as allies against a third hostile foe? Were the marriages consensual, or were the followers of Neith forced into the arrangement. If they served a mutual interest for the parties involved, might not this indicate a shared future objective?

Nesut translates into "of sut," the sut being a name for the Egyptian sedge plant. Den, the 5th king of the first dynasty, was the first to have the name in his titulary. This element of the king's titulary is part of the 'Throne' name, or prenomen, as it is also called. The complete phrase is Nesut-Bity, supposedly meaning "of the sut and the bee," of which the sut apparently symbolizes Upper Egypt, and the bee the Delta region. But is this truly what the ancient Egyptians meant by this term? Let's analyze it.

The most abundantly growing sedge plant in Egypt is the Papyrus, which spreads throughout the entire length of the Nile Valley. However, the papyrus plant is NOT the official heraldic symbol for Upper Egypt; the lilly is. Some ambitious Egyptologist, discerning the Egyptian habit of illustrating duality in expressions of art and literature, prematurely inferred that the sedge and bee combination was yet another instance of that tendency. (S)he did not consider that such a redundant, visual emphasis on this concept of duality --- sedge & bee --- would be superfluous at that stage. Perhaps, (s)he wasn't aware at that time that this Suten-Bity name wasn't used by the first 4 pharaohs of the newly unified country. If so, they should have asked the questions: Why wasn't the Suten-Bity name formalized at the very onset of the unification? And why is it used only in the 'Throne' name?

Bear in mind that the hieroglyphic alphabet contain no vowels. Egyptologists add vowels as a scholarly convention in order to make the words pronounceable. Nesut is simply Nst: N "of " + st "sut". The same letters are also translated as N "of" + st "throne". Though the king is the ruler of both lands his throne is at the palace built in Lower Egypt. Besides, it's a fact that Nsut didn't originally refer to the king of both lands, because the title existed before the unification of the 2 lands. This means that each land had its own name/title for its king. Therefore, Nesut-Bity could just as well mean "Of the throne in the land of the bee," the throne the king was able to ascend because of his marriage to a queen/princess of Lower Egypt.

In Figure 1 below, I've presented the map for the nomes of lower Egypt. For nomes 4 & 5 I also included their standards. Though the 'Bee' is particularly associated with Sais (5th nome), where its main temple Per-Bity ("House of the Bee") was situated, I've taken the liberty of pairing this symbol with the papyrus plant of nome 4 as well, because it was linked to the land(s) of Neith in general. Yet also because, in addition to being a manufacturer of paper, bees wax, & fine linens, Neith was also a goddess renowned for producing honey (instantly connecting the bee with the papyrus plant, one of its main sources for nectar). As the nome standards illustrate, the 'Sut' sedge was represented by the 5th nome (or Northern Shield) of Neith's domain, while the papyrus was portrayed by the 4th nome (or Southern Shield) of her domain, effectively dividing LOWER Egypt into Upper & Lower regions. So it's easy to see how the Southern half could be misinterpreted as the Southern/Upper land of Egypt that begins after crossing Memphis' southern border. This supports my argument that 'Nesut Bity' originally meant "The throne in the land of the Bee.".

The modern Nehesi owes a debt of gratitude to the Greeks for preserving the ancient language of Egypt as correctly as possible in their translations of it. I've already mentioned how vowel placement was arbitrary in a consonantal alphabet system. The Greeks have not only demonstrated this, but have also confirmed for us the original Egyptian root of the word "Being" in their term "on-T-ology".

¹ From this demonstration we also provide a solution for the meaning of El.

² Observe the different spellings for "great" : er and aa (cf. Pharaoh). Assume that different areas of Egypt had their own distinct semantics before and after the unification of the land.

³ A variant of Neith; was not only the first recorded theophoric of a goddess, but also the name of the royal wife of Mene(/Narmer?), the first king to unite Egypt. See The Meaning Of Kemet for further insight. And do note the similarity of the crowns of Neith, Min, Menes (Narmer?), Mentuhotep 2, and Amen! They detail a progression of theologies as they make their transition from a female-orientated to male-dominant religion. Yet this crown, from the very beginning, appears to have been the official headgear of Lower Egypt, and a Goddess wore it first! For though it is called the Deshret crown, that only signifies its color (red); whereas its more sacred name was the Niwt, a homonym which not only denoted the goddess herself, but also the word for the town/city constructed around her throne!

MORE PROOF That (1) GODDESS Was Preeminent Divinity, And (2) That The Biblical God Was Her Son.

A.H. Sayce, in his Records Of the Past, Vol. iii, 123, has relayed to us a liturgical text entitled The Lamentations Of Isis & Nephtys. In it Nephtys calls to Osiris, "O God An, come to Sais ... come to Aper; thou will see thy mother Neith.".

The best preserved version of this liturgy is to be found in the Berlin Papyrus 3008, dating from the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Bear in mind that, according to tradition and scholarly consensus, it was during this dynasty that the LXX was written. Also, in the Pyramid Texts of Unas, wherein he is identified with the resurrected Osiris, Neith is referred to as his mother! Therefore, we are here presented with corroborating evidence that the God An (or On; Ex. 3:14 LXX) was none other than Osiris. This fact should also finally resolve the Jah-Bel-On controversy.

For those who are reading me for the first time, you are redirected to SQUARING THE LIGHT.

TO BE CONTINUED ....