Hathor's name means "domain (or mansion) of Horus". In the Pyramid Texts, the Domain of Horus was a special part of the sky where the dead king would be rejuvenated. She was most commonly shown as a beautiful woman wearing a red solar disk between a pair of cow's horns.
She was a complex deity with many attributes. She helped women give birth, the dead to reborn and the cosmos to be renewed. She was the goddess of many precious metals and gemstones.
As the Eye of Ra, she could also be identified with the solar disk or the morning or evening star.
My photo shows a close-up of Hathor's face (note the cow-ears) in the south end of the second level of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple in Deir El Bahry.