The goddess Hathor was simultaneously considered to be the mother, wife, and daughter of the sun god Ra. Horus, the grandson of Geb, had his own mother, Isis, become his imperial consort. Geb either forcefully copulated with his mother, Tefnut, or she willingly became his chief queen. In Egyptian mythology, Geb challenged his father's, Shu's, leadership, which caused the latter to withdraw from the world. Uranus with his mother Gaia then further produced three monstrous giants, the Hecatonchieres. She also bore him the Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. The Titans were not the only offsprings Gaia had with her son, Uranus. In some versions, one of their daughters, Rhea coupled with the young Zeus, Rhea's youngest son. In Greek mythology, Gaia (earth) had 12 children with her own son Uranus (sky). Often from sexual unions with their son-husbands, some goddesses bore numerous offspring.
In this pattern, the Mother, like a goddess of fertility, was often accompanied by a young male deity who was both her son and later her husband after his father's demise: Astaroth with Tammuz, Kybele with Attis, etc. The pattern of a mother-goddess coupling with a young male deity was widespread in the entire pre-Aryan and pre-Semitic cultural zone of Orient from southwest Asia to the eastern Mediterranean.
