Thread: I will like to try to "decode" this image, based on what I have discovered about the link between wild cattle and sycamore fig annual lifecycles and their link to the great annual flood of the Nile. The mural is of the Ramesside era, Deir el-Medina, tomb of Irynfer... 
First the official interpretation:
As I have explained in detail in my post "Holy Cow" oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/03/holy-c… Hathor, the Holy Cow, is the deified Nile flood...
The reason why she is depicted as a cow, is because the monsoon which feeds the flood starts during the calving period of wild auroch cattle...which spans April - May...Which is marked in zodiacs with the symbol of Taurus...
Taurus, the calving season, marks the beginning of summer, which spans May, June, July. At the end of July, beginning of August, the wild auroch cattle mating season starts, which is marked by vicious bull fights...
So our bull calf marking the beginning of the summer becomes bull marking the end of the summer. Summer being season marked by a bull...
The flood which is kickstarted by the April-May (Taurus) monsoon peaks in the season marked by Leo, Autumn (August, September, October). Lion, which kills the bull, the end of summer and beginning of autumn. This happens at the end of July beginning of August...In Leo...
So what is the link between sycamore and the flood? Why is the bull calf standing between sycamore trees? Because of this: "Sycamore has three main harvests: May, June, August/September"...
Ancient Egyptian flood season, called Akhet - the inundation, lasted from June to September...Actually it started in May, when the monsoon that feeds the flood started in East Africa. It just takes some time for the flood water to reach Egypt...
So sycamore bears fruit during the flood season which is the source of all life in the Nile Valley...No wonder Hathor (the flood) was depicted as the sycamore tree full of fruit. Her legs being the trunk and all the fruit bearing branches growing out of her...
And the reason why she is always depicted carrying jug of water and platter of bread is kind of self explanatory. It was the flood that made land fertile and able to produce grain for bread. And it was the flood that fed the wells which produced water...
But why red sun rising. This is a very very interesting question.mThe flood season coincides with the summer, the hottest season completely dominated by the sun. So Ancient Egyptians could be forgiven for believing that it was the sun which somehow miraculously produced the flood
Now the flood waters are reddish brownish in colour because of all the sediment, and can sometimes be blood read, leading to the image of the river of blood...So I really think that the red sun represents the flood too, more precisely, sun filling nile with red flood water...
Which happens during the summer, between wild cattle calving and mating seasons, which is actually the wild cattle lactating season, and between the beginning and the end of the sycamore fruit bearing season...
Hathor was closely associated with Hesat, another ancient Egyptian goddess in the form of a cow. Hesat was usually shown as a pure white cow carrying a tray of food on her head as her udders flow with milk...
Well that is as good a depiction of the effect of the monsoon and the resulting flood on Egypt which happens during the lactating season of the wild cattle, as I could imagine...
Hesat was in turn connected with Mnevis, the living bull god worshipped at Heliopolis, and the mothers of Mnevis bulls were buried in a cemetery dedicated to Hesat...
As I said, it is the calving season of the wild cattle (and Hathor was specifically said to be a wild cow), that marks the beginning of the monsoon which feeds the life bringing great flood...
This is also one of the reasons why Hathor carries the sun disc between her horns. Because Taurus (Bull in Latin), more correctly Vacca (Cow in Latin) marks the beginning of Summer. Taurus (Vacca) literally brings summer, season dominated by sun, between his (her) horns...
