Hathor was the Egyptian sky Goddess, and daughter of the sun God, Ra. She was usually represented as a cow. The Goddess of joy and love, dance and song, she looked after mothers and children. She nurtured the living and carried the dead to the underworld. There she refreshed them with food and drink from a tree.

The Eye of Ra was identified with Hathor. When Ra grew old, humankind began to plot against him. Hearing of this, this enraged God decided to send the divine Eye, the terrifying, burning power of the sun, to slaughter them. The Eye took the form of Hathor who, as the lioness Sekhmet, or the "Powerful One", threw herself at all the wicked men and women and killed them in a massive bloodbath. Eventually Ra decided that enough carnage had been inflicted, and he called an end to the slaughter. Only by Ra's intervention was Sekhmet prevented from destroying humanity. In order to put an end to Sekhmet's relentless slaughter, Ra drenched the battleground in thousands of jugs of beer mixed with pomegranate juice. The bloodthirsty Sekhmet drank the bright red potion, believing it was blood, and became so inebriated that she ceased her attack and was transformed back into the beautiful Hathor. In tribute of the event, great jugs of beer and pomegranate juice were drunk annually on Hathor's feast day.