Editing Hathor (section)

===Funerary practices===

[[File:Relief de Séthi I et Hathor - Musée du Louvre Antiquités Egyptiennes N 124 ; B 7 ; Champollion n 1.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=Relief of Hathor holding a man's hand and lifting her menat necklace for him to grasp|Hathor welcoming [[Seti&nbsp;I]] into the afterlife, 13th century BC]]

As an afterlife deity, Hathor appeared frequently in funerary texts and art. In the early New Kingdom, for instance, she was one of the three deities most commonly found in royal tomb decoration, the others being Osiris and [[Anubis]].{{sfn|Lesko|1999|p=110}} In that period she often appeared as the goddess welcoming the dead into the afterlife.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|p=171}} Other images referred to her more obliquely. Reliefs in Old Kingdom tombs show men and women performing a ritual called "shaking the papyrus". The significance of this rite is not known, but inscriptions sometimes say it was performed "for Hathor", and shaking papyrus stalks produces a rustling sound that may have been likened to the rattling of a sistrum.{{sfn|Woods|2011|pp=314–316}} Other Hathoric imagery in tombs included the cow emerging from the mountain of the necropolis{{sfn|Pinch|1993|pp=179–180}} and the seated figure of the goddess presiding over a garden in the afterlife.{{sfn|Billing|2004|pp=42–43}} Images of Nut were often painted or incised inside coffins, indicating the coffin was her womb, from which the occupant would be reborn in the afterlife. In the Third Intermediate Period, Hathor began to be placed on the floor of the coffin, with Nut on the interior of the lid.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=39–40, 110}}

Tomb art from the Eighteenth Dynasty often shows people drinking, dancing, and playing music, as well as holding ''menat'' necklaces and sistra—all imagery that alluded to Hathor. These images may represent private feasts that were celebrated in front of tombs to commemorate the people buried there, or they may show gatherings at temple festivals such as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–136, 144–147}} Festivals were thought to allow contact between the human and divine realms, and by extension, between the living and the dead. Thus, texts from tombs often expressed a wish that the deceased would be able to participate in festivals, primarily those dedicated to Osiris.{{sfn|Assmann|2005|p=225}} Tombs' festival imagery, however, may refer to festivals involving Hathor, such as the Festival of Drunkenness, or to the private feasts, which were also closely connected with her. Drinking and dancing at these feasts may have been meant to intoxicate the celebrants, as at the Festival of Drunkenness, allowing them to commune with the spirits of the deceased.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–136, 144–147}}

Hathor was said to supply offerings to deceased people as early as the Old Kingdom, and spells to enable both men and women to join her retinue in the afterlife appeared as early as the Coffin Texts.{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=251–254}} Some burial goods that portray deceased women as goddesses may depict these women as followers of Hathor, although whether the imagery refers to Hathor or Isis is not known. The link between Hathor and deceased women was maintained into the Roman Period, the last stage of ancient Egyptian religion before its [[decline of ancient Egyptian religion|extinction]].{{sfn|Smith|2017|pp=384–389}}