Iconography

Satis is almost always depicted as a woman wearing the conical White Crown of Upper Egypt to which are attached antelope horns or plumes and a uraeus. Usually she wears a simple sheath dress and may carry an ankh or was sceptre as signs of her divinity rather than personal attributes. Early •.'.Titings of her name use a hieroglyph representing

(Right) Satis (at right) embraces Tuthmosis lU. I8th dynasty. Carved block, temple of Satis, Elephantine.

A shoulder knot in a linen garment, but later writings use an animal skin pierced by an arrow. This latter symbol could have been assimilated from Anukis the tiunh'ess goddess who came to be seen as her daughter. The symbol is sometimes depicted with the goddess in representational works.

Worship

The principal cult centre of Satis was at Elephantine w'here her shrine was built on an early

Preclynastic site. Research by Ronald Wells has shown that elements of the temple of Satis were carefully aligned with the position of the star Sothis or Sirius in the night sky, tying the goddess in this manner to the star’s rising and the annual inundation of the Nile. It has also been pointed out that the goddess’s temple was situated at a point where the waters of the inundation might be heard before they became visible in the lower reaches of the Nile, so that her function of protector of the borders could also be tied to that of guardian of the Nile’s flood and its resultant fertility.