Sesenet-khu
the lion-headed goddess of the Second Hour
What is claimed
The census carries this name with the following description, taken verbatim from the aggregate list it was extracted from:
A goddess in Duat
Accurate as far as it goes, and the archive adds the one thing that matters: she is lion-headed. That is a real attested attribute, and it is more than most members of these rosters get.
Identified
Group: the gods who minister to Osiris in the Second Hour of the Night [budge-1904] — she is last named in that roster, and the only one given a head. Budge: "…Horus-Set, Mest-en-Asar, met-en-asar, the term of Osiris, and a lion-headed goddess Sesenet-khu." Behind the whole group come seven goddesses — Mest-tcheses, Amam-mitu, Her-tuaiu, Sekhet of Thebes, Amet-tcheru, Ament-nefert, Nit-tep-Ament — and on the far side of the boat some twenty more gods.
Under the companies rule (C246) this is a pointer rather than an entry: the source names the member and describes only the set it belongs to. Found by reading the scene whole rather than searching the name — none of these names is printed outside its list (C362).
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* I, the **Second Hour of the Night**, p. 211 | "**a lion-headed goddess Sesenet-khu**," closing the roster of gods who minister to Osiris |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. I. Public domain, archived. A transcribed roster with an accompanying description of the scene, which is Budge at his most dependable.
Open questions
- Why is she the only one with a head? In a list of some fifteen ministering gods, Budge describes the appearance of exactly one. Either the source singles her out or Budge does — worth establishing which.
- Another lioness. Egypt has a great many, and the corpus now tracks several. Check whether Sesenet-khu is an epithet of a known lion-goddess rather than an independent one (the epithet trap, C290).
- The seven goddesses who come behind this group are named and not in the census. Check them against the roster — that is another set, already located.
Cite this entry
Research grade: ⇄duplicate — A second spelling or roster listing of a name entered elsewhere.
"Sesenet-khu", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded duplicate, retrieved 2026-08-10.