 Anubis (jnpw) |
 Bastet (b3stt) |
 Hathor (ht-hrw) |
 Horus (hrw) |
 Khnum (khnwm) |
 Sekhmet (skhmt) |
 Set (sth) |
 Sobek (sbk) |
 Thoth (djhwty) |
sbkOther Egyptian Gods
Sobek, the crocodile, was not worshipped everywhere in Egypt, but in the Fayoum he was a powerful deity from the earliest Dynastic times. His cult was centered in Shedyet (Crocodilopolis) but many locales in this region maintained temples in his honor. The powers of the crocodile god were thought to have extended to the very creation of the world. Lake Moeris, in the Fayoum, was regarded as the primeval ocean (Nun) of ancient myth wherein all forms of life originated. It was at Shedyet that the primordial mound arose out of the waters of this ocean, and life appeared on the earth for the first time.
The crocodile, which emerged silently and mysteriously from the waters of the lakes and river, was likened to the primeval mound and was thus believed to embody the elemental powers of creation. Although a treacherous creature, it was considered a benefactor of the land, analogous to the Nile itself whose threatening floodwaters nonetheless ensured the perpetuity of life.
Diodorus of Sicily, who wrote in the first century CE, found that Egyptians themselves varied in their views of why the crocodile was held sacred. Some claimed that it ensured the safety of the country since foreign robbers were prevented from crossing the river into Egypt because of the great number of crocodiles in it. Others explained that the crocodile had saved an early king from his own vicious dogs by carrying him on its back to the other side of Lake Moeris and that on this account the king commanded the inhabitants of the region to pay homage to the beast. The crocodile was also considered a prophet of the annual inundation, since the females, sensing the levels of the coming flood, would lay their eggs just beyond the anticipated high water mark.
Bibliography of Egyptology references used in these Stuffe & Nonsense Lore Pages.
