Heket

**Heket**


 * Other Names:**

Heqet, Heget, Hekat


 * Hieroglyphics:**

or


 * Titles:**

“She Who Hastens the Birth”


 * Family:**

Heket was thought to be the daughter of Ra and the wife of Khnum, Shu, or Sobek. She was sometimes considered to have been created by Thoth.

A goddess of creation, midwifery, and the germination of barley. Heket was also a moon goddess, which since the earliest times was understood to be linked with the ebb and flow of water and of fertility. The patroness of midwives, who called themselves the “Servants of Heket.” Women often wore amulets of her during childbirth.

Heket was represented as a frog, sometimes crouching over a clutch of eggs, or as a frog-headed woman. On rare occasions she was shown as a frog on the end of a phallus to explicitly indicate her association with fertility. In the Pyramid Texts Heket allowed the king to ascend into the sky after death, and was midwife to the birth of the sun every morning.

Heket sent blessing to women’s houses, and gave all creatures the breath of life before they were placed to grow in their mother's womb. Ivory wands and clappers decorated with knife-welding frogs have been found, used in spells aimed at protection of mothers and children. In the Khontamenti temple at Abydos many little frogs made of faience and stone have been found, votive offerings to Heket. Being sacred to Heket, frogs were sometimes mummified.

Egyptian Deities - H