Qadesh: Syrian and Egyptian Goddess of Sacred Ecstacy and Sacred Sexuality

Qadesh: Goddess of Sexuality and Ecstasy

Qadesh is the Syrian and Egyptian Goddess of Sacred Ecstasy and Sacred sexuality. Her Semitic name implies the word “holy” and despite her near eastern origins, she was quickly absorbed by ancient Egyptian religion and culture.  She as often worshipped as part of a triad of deities  including the fertility god Min and the Asiatic god Reshep. Qadesh was often linked with Hathor whom she resembled in some ways and with the inherently sensual Near Eastern goddesses Anat and Astarte, both of whom were known in ancient Egypt.

Qadesh is often represented fully nude in the frontal position riding on a lions back with lotus blossoms in one hand and a snake in the other, both representing eroticism and fertility  in Ancient Egypt.  in some representations she is flanked by Min on her right and Reshep on her left, the two gods usually being depicted standing on plinths or shrines which elevates them closer to the same height as the lion-borne goddess.

In the Near East the cult of Qadesh involved in the simulation of a sacred marriage between the goddess and her consort Reshep by her followers. It is not known whether similar rites were enacted in Egypt, where the cult of Qadesh was established at least as early as the 18th Dynasty, but the goddess seems to have been fairly widely venerated. Her image is found on a good many  19th-dynasty votive and funerary stelae and she was worshipped in temples at Memphis and other locations.