Cobra

The Cobra in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Iaret// (“The Papyrus-Colored One,” meaning “The Green One”)


 * Hieroglyphics:**

or

The Egyptian Cobra, the Spitting Cobra, and the Desert Black Cobra are all extremely poisonous, and were thus greatly feared. Many ancient Egyptian spells and amulets attest to the deadly danger that the cobra represented. The cobra can be seen on most, if not all, of the crowns of Egypt, often resting on the pharaoh’s brow.

An enormous cobra once protected the forehead of the Great Sphinx at Giza. Fragments of it, including the head, are now kept at the British Museum after being discovered lying between the sphinx's paws by a Captain Caviglia, who presented the cobra head to the museum in 1817.

The cobra represented heat and fire, and was believed to guard the pharaoh. Rows of cobras protected royal tombs, and figurines of cobras were often put into tombs for protection against grave robbers. Cobras were honored for protecting the harvest from rats and mice, and were thought to guide the worthy dead through the Duat and protect them from danger.

Twelve cobras were believed to illuminate the darkness of the Duat with blasts of their fiery breath, lighting the way for the deceased. An Egyptian spell says that four cobras made of clay, placed in each corner of a room, would ward away ghosts. Protective amulets of cobras, made of gold, faience, glass, silver, wood, carnelian, lapis lazuli, and bronze, were popular. Cobras also appear on magical wands and on the jewelry of royal women. As a sacred creature, several mummified cobras have been found at Tuna el-Gebel.

The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol of the cobra was used in words such as “royalty,” “goddess,” and “queen,” and it was so ancient that the sign that preceded the name of any Egyptian goddess was the cobra. Many goddesses were associated with the cobra, such as Wadjet, Meretseger, and Renenutet.

Priestesses of Isis were sometimes shown with a cobra coiled around their arms, and women would walk barefoot through scorpions and cobras, protected by their belief in the power of Isis. In Predynastic times queens and chief consorts wore a golden crown surmounted by many tiny cobras. Egyptian queens held the title “Serpent of the Nile,” representing the cobra goddess who embraced the king.

The Reptiles and Amphibians of Ancient Egypt