In the myth, Sekhmet's bloodlust was not quenched at the end of battle, and this led to her going on a bloody rampage that laid Egypt to waste and almost destroyed all of humanity.

This threatened the power and security of the world—thus, she was persuaded by the god Thoth to return and restore the sun to its full glory.

Many of her statues can be found in museums and archaeological sites, and her presence testifies to the historical and cultural importance of this goddess.

During an annual festival held at the beginning of the year, a festival of intoxication, the Egyptians danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess and drank great quantities of beer and wine ritually to imitate the extreme drunkenness that stopped the wrath of the goddess—when she almost destroyed humanity.In 2006, Betsy Bryan, an archaeologist with Johns Hopkins University excavating at the temple of Mut in Luxor (Thebes) presented her findings about the festival that included illustrations of the priestesses being served to excess and its adverse effects on them being ministered to by temple attendants.

[citation needed] The first known unambiguous reference to Sekhmet has been found in mortuary complex of Nyuserre Ini of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt.

[14] A myth describes how Kali became ecstatic with the joy of battle and slaughter while killing demons, and refused to stop until she was pacified by her consort, Shiva, who threw himself under her feet.

[15] Marvin H. Pope in 1977 asserted that this myth exhibits parallels to the Egyptian myth in which Sekhmet was sent by Ra to destroy the humans plotting against him only to become so captured by her blood-lust that she would not stop despite Ra himself becoming distressed and wishing an end to the killing, only to be stopped by a ruse whereby a plain was flooded with beer which had been dyed red, which Sekhmet mistook for blood and drank until she became too inebriated to continue killing, thus saving humanity from destruction.