Hathor

The goddess Hathor was usually depicted as a cow, as a woman with the head of a cow, or as a woman with cow’s ears. Hathor embodied motherhood and fertility, and it was believed that she protected women in childbirth. She also had an important funerary aspect, being known as “the lady of the west.” (Tombs were generally built on the west bank of the Nile.) In some traditions, she would welcome the setting sun every night; living people hoped to be welcomed into the afterlife in the same way.