Eye of Ra the "Instruction of Ankhsheshonq", which says a man's wife is like a cat when he can keep her happy and like a lioness when he cannot. The characteristics of the Eye of Ra were an important part of the Egyptian conception of female divinity in general, and the Eye was equated with many goddesses, ranging from very prominent deities like Hathor to obscure ones like Mestjet, a lion goddess who appears in only one known inscription. The Egyptians associated many gods who took felid form with the sun, and many lioness deities, like Sekhmet, Menhit, and Tefnut, were equated with
Eye of Ra again at nightfall. The solar Eye is said to assist in this effort, slaughtering the gods for Ra to eat. The red light of dawn therefore signifies the blood produced by this slaughter. In the myth called the Destruction of Mankind, related in the "Book of the Heavenly Cow" from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Ra uses the Eye as a weapon against humans who have rebelled against his authority. He sends the Eye—Hathor, in her aggressive manifestation as the lioness goddess Sekhmet—to massacre them. She does so, but after the first day of her rampage, Ra decides to