| Taweret | |
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The river goddess Taweret, portrayed as a bipedal hippopotamus with limbs like those of a feline. |
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| Goddess of childbirth | |
| Symbol | the sa, ivory dagger, Hippopotamus |
| Consort | Set |
In Egyptian mythology, Taweret (also spelled Taurt, Tuat, Taouris, Tuart, Ta-weret, Tawaret, and Taueret, and in Greek, Θουέρις "Thouéris" and Toeris) is the Egyptian Goddess of childbirth and fertility. The name "Taweret" means, "she who is great" or simply, "great one".[1] When paired with another deity, she became the wife of Apep, the devouring serpent god much feared by the Egyptians. However, the Egyptians essentially treated Taweret as a benevolent figure and this deity is attested as early as the Old Kingdom period "when she took three principal names: Opet or Ipy ('harim' or favoured place), Taweret ('the great goddess') and Reret ('the sow'). She has been linked with the fierce, devouring goddess Ammit"[2] While there is a temple of Opet at Karnak, dating to the Late Period and Ptolemaic era, "it was the cult of Taweret that gained particular importance over time."[2]
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Taweret was known as mistress of the horizon. Like the dwarf god Bes, Taweret:
She was "usually portrayed with the arms and legs of a lion and the back and tail of a crocodile (or even a complete crocodile perched on her back), while her pendulous breasts and full belly conveyed the idea of pregnancy."[2] On occasion, later, rather than having a crocodile back, she was seen as having a separate, small crocodile resting on her back, which was thus interpreted as Sobek, the crocodile-god, and said to be her consort.
Early during the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians saw female hippopotami as less aggressive than the males, and began to view their aggression as only protecting their young--not territorial, as was male aggression. Consequently, Taweret became seen, very early in Egyptian history, as a deity of protection in pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnant women wore amulets with her name or likeness to protect their pregnancies. Because of her protective powers during childbirth, "the image of the hippopotamus-goddess was considered a suitable motif for the decoration of beds and headrests.[2]
In most subsequent depictions, Taweret was depicted with features of a pregnant woman. In a composite addition to the animal-compound she was also seen with pendulous breasts, a full pregnant abdomen, and long, straight human hair on her head. Faience vases in the shape of the goddess "provided with a small pouring hole at the nipple, were sometimes used to serve milk, presumably in an attempt to invoke extra divine potency into the liquid."[3]
As a protector, she often was shown with one arm resting on the sa symbol, which symbolized protection, and on occasion she carried an ankh, the symbol of life, or a knife, which would be used to threaten evil spirits. As the hippopotamus was associated with the Nile, these more positive ideas of Taweret allowed her to be seen as a goddess of the annual flooding of the Nile and the bountiful harvest that it brought. Ultimately, although only a household deity, since she was still considered the consort of Apep, Taweret was seen as one who protected against evil by restraining it.
A massive, skyscraper-sized statue of Taweret is a prominent feature of the American television series Lost. Ruins of the statue were first seen in the second season finale "Live Together, Die Alone", in the form of the statue's foot, broken off at the ankle. The full statue, viewed from the back, later appears in the fifth season episode "LaFleur". In the April 2009 Wired magazine, which was guest-edited by the series' producer J.J. Abrams, one of the coded messages in the issue decrypted to the sentence, "The four toed statue is Taweret."[4]
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Taweret Taweret] at Wikimedia Commons
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