Seshat

Seshat is an ancient Egyptian goddess associated with writing, records, libraries, and the administration of temple and state projects. The name is often translated as “She Who Writeth” or “the Lady Scribe.” In Egyptian art and inscriptions, Seshat is portrayed as a female deity tied to scribal activity and the keeping of records, with iconography that emphasizes writing—such as a notebook or scroll—on which she writes or oversees documentation. She is frequently linked with Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing, reflecting her function in the record-keeping, calendrical, and architectural tasks that supported royal power. Seshat was invoked in contexts relating to temple construction and the recording of royal achievements, and she appears in various forms across dynastic periods.

In modern scholarship, Seshat also refers to the Seshat: Global History Databank, a cross-cultural research project and database that collects standardized historical data on social complexity, institutions, governance, religion, and economy across civilizations and eras. The project aims to enable large-scale, comparative studies of state formation, diffusion of ideas, and long-run patterns in world history. It employs a coding framework to convert qualitative historical narratives into quantitative variables. The project has contributed to debates about the drivers of state capacity and long-term social evolution, though it has faced methodological criticisms related to data limitations and coding practices.