Mother of the All. This image in the Cairo museum dates from late antiquity, when Egypt still exerted a powerful religious influence across the Roman empire. She exemplifies a standard of beauty that has been nearly eclipsed in modern society: one that appreciated fat women. Egyptian gnostics revered this Mother of the All as Barbelo, "the all-wise Sophia," cause of Life and Mind. Her litanies, such as Thunder, Perfect Mind, drew on the old praisesongs of Auset. Fragmentary invocations even
