fromthedust: statue of Meretseger - limestone - Thebes, Egypt - New Kingdom, 19th-20th Dynasty, c.12
fromthedust: statue of Meretseger - limestone - Thebes, Egypt - New Kingdom, 19th-20th Dynasty, c.1295-1070 BCE Meretseger (Mertseger, Merseger, Mereseger) was a cobra-goddess and guardian of the dead in the Theban valleys. A fiercely protective deity, she punished thieves and wrongdoers by striking them blind with her venom. She was revered mostly by the people who worked in the necropolis, building and decorating the tombs of the New Kingdom pharaohs. She lived atop a snake-infested pyramid-shaped desert mountain that served as one of the entrances to the Egyptian underworld. Meretseger was called the Peak of the West, stemming from her association with the hill now called el Qurn, “The Horn”, located on the West Bank of Luxor in Upper Egypt. A natural peak in the Theban hills, it overlooks the Valley of the Kings; when viewed from its opening, it has a pyramid-like shape, which is why it was thought to have served as an entrance to the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. Meretseger’s name translates to ‘she who loves silence’. Her close association with the Valley of the Kings prevented her becoming more than a local deity, so when Thebes was finally abandoned as the Egyptian capital around the 21st dynasty, the necropolis fell out of use and so too ceased her worship. https://www.thecollector.com/meretseger/ -- source link