Editing Meskhenet (section)

==In mythology==
{{Ancient Egyptian religion}}
In [[ancient Egypt]], women delivered babies while [[Squatting position|squatting]] on a pair of [[brick]]s, known as "birth bricks", and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nifosi |first=Ada |title=Becoming a woman and mother in Greco-Roman Egypt: women's bodies, society and domestic space |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-367-73182-3 |series=Medicine and the body in antiquity |location=London New York |pages=51}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Spieser |first=Cathie |date=2011-12-15 |title=Meskhenet et les sept Hathors en Egypte ancienne |url=http://journals.openedition.org/edl/141 |journal=Études de lettres |issue=3-4 |pages=63–92 |doi=10.4000/edl.141 |issn=0014-2026}}</ref> Consequently, in [[art]], she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's [[uterus]] upon it.<ref name="Wilkinson" /> At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus on her headdress.<ref name="Wilkinson">{{cite book |author=Wilkinson, Richard H. |title=The complete gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |year=2003 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/completegodsgodd00wilk_0/page/152 152–153] |isbn=0-500-05120-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/completegodsgodd00wilk_0/page/152 }}</ref>

Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with [[destiny|fate]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with [[Shai]], who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.<ref name="Wilkinson"/>

Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the [[Westcar Papyrus]].<ref name=":0" /> The story tells of the birth of [[Userkaf]], [[Sahure]], and [[Neferirkare Kakai]], the first three kings of the [[Fifth dynasty of Egypt|Fifth Dynasty]], who in the story are said to be triplets.<ref name=":0" /> Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite book |author=Lichtheim, Miriam |author-link=Miriam Lichtheim |title=Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year=2006 |pages=220–222 |isbn=978-0-520-24842-7 }}</ref>