In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet is the lioness-headed goddess associated with war and healing.
Sekhmet was a powerful ancient Egyptian goddess of warfare, disease, medicine, and healing. She is usually shown as a woman with the head of a lioness, wearing a solar disk and uraeus, linking her fierce power to the sun god Ra. Her name is often translated as “the Powerful One.”
Egyptian belief presented her powers as both destructive and protective. Sekhmet could send plagues, yet priests and worshippers also invoked her to ward off illness and heal the sick. This dual role—bringing disease and curing it—made her especially important to Egyptian medicine and ritual practice.
In the myth of Ra’s punishment of humanity, Sekhmet’s bloodlust nearly destroys the human race. The gods stop her by dyeing beer red so that it resembles blood; after drinking it, she becomes intoxicated and abandons the slaughter. Sekhmet is sometimes confused with Bastet or Hathor because Egyptian goddesses could share feline or solar identities, but the lioness-warrior image is most characteristically hers.