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Perhaps no animal is as divisive as the snake; it’s a creature that people seem to either loathe or admire. This divisiveness is understandable since snakes are both helpful and harmful, a possible harbinger of fear and fatality yet also life and luck. This paradox of sorts has brought forth a duality of the human conscience regarding their purpose in the world, one that is underscored by countless myths and depictions of snakes as creatures to be respected throughout various societies over the course of human history. One society in which snakes take center stage and this duality is epitomized is that of Ancient Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians are known today for the significance they placed upon animals, as evidenced by their prominence in relics, myths, and even their hieroglyphic language. As such, the serpentine figure played a pivotal role in shaping Ancient Egypt’s identity, perhaps even more so than its other animal counterparts. Many species of snakes were widely found and are still found in the area that was once Ancient Egypt. These snakes were viewed as powerful and intimidating forces of nature, especially those with venom within their fangs. One bite could be enough to end an Ancient Egyptian’s life in some cases, so they were thus regarded and treated with great caution. However, these snakes also created harmony throughout the land by making people's lives easier. Rats which could eat stores of saved food and carry deadly diseases were prey items of the snakes, which improved the health and longevity of the people. In addition, “As, each year, the rising Nile waters caused a rise in the number of snakes attracted to the settlements by the increased numbers of vermin flushed from the low-lying ground, cobras also came to be associated with the fertility of the Nile.” It is no surprise, then, that the serpent stood as the symbol of the earth, royalty, and divine power, for they inspired feelings of awe as did the gods and pharaohs. Their equally foreboding and fortuitous natures have been immortalized in a wealth of literature and artwork, demonstrating the high value the Ancient Egyptians bestowed upon these snakes. This essay will examine the influential impact of serpents on Ancient Egyptian religion by exploring how they are presented with various texts, myths, deities, and important aspects of daily life.

First and foremost, snakes are so deeply rooted in Egyptian culture that they feature as aspects of their language itself. Many animals were used as hieroglyphs, which represented either sounds or ideas, snakes being no exception. Yet these ideas could prove significantly powerful, so much so that at times they were regarded with intense religious suspicion: “... some of the hieroglyphic pictures were so lifelike that the artists who carved funerary texts into tomb walls occasionally felt it prudent to dismember or impale the more dangerous animal ‘letters’ (the symbols of the snake and scorpion, for example) lest they spring magically to life and harm the tomb owner.” This prevalence and potency of the serpent in the written language likely evolved in part due to how widespread snakes were in Ancient Egypt. There were so many types that a document which is now called the Brooklyn Snake Papyrus was crafted for the purpose of providing the appearance of thirty-eight different kinds of snakes and the means of treatment for their bites. One of the most important snakes was the Egyptian cobra, also known as Naja haje. Its intimidating hood, impressive size, and venomous bite were enough to help it earn its permanent place in the history of Ancient Egypt. In fact, the image of an angry cobra raising its hood to defend itself was so spectacular that pharaohs fully embraced the idea and wore a replica on their foreheads which “was emblematic of wisdom, power, royalty, and divinity”. This symbol was known as uraeus and had great religious significance, its creation explained in an interesting myth which has to do with the early divine beings Atum, Shu, and Tefnut. A despairing Atum, in an attempt to find his lost children Shu and Tefnut who had become separated from him, took his Eye, and this female being located them in the waters of Nun. However, upon her arrival with the twin children, she became upset after learning she had been replaced by a new Eye. In order to appease her, he changed her into a cobra which he then placed on his brow. This transformation of the Eye of Atum into the symbolic uraeus was important for future pharaohs embodying divinity, since the “creator god’s placing of the uraeus on his brow marked the establishment of the divine monarchy and worn on the brow of the king it became the guardian of his power.” Thus, the uraeus served to legitimize and protect the king’s rule by deepening his connection to divine power. In fact, cobra replicas were deemed so useful that they were not only placed on royal attire, but also crafted for other religious purposes: “A rearing cobra… worn on the brow watched over the gods and the royal family, cobra amulets incorporated in mummy wrapping protected the deceased, and a painted pottery cobra, placed in the corner of a room, was a tried and tested means of warding off evil ghosts and spirits.” These traditions and rituals demonstrate the power and protective spirit of the cobra so admired by Ancient Egyptians, both in life and in death.

Cobra and snake symbolism in general extends farther into representations of the deities themselves. Both male and female divine beings could be represented as serpents with a diverse physicality and morality, although female snake deities were usually portrayed positively. Snake goddesses played vital roles in Ancient Egyptian religion since the beginning of creation with the Hermopolis story, in which there were four pairs of divine couples, the four males represented like frogs and the four females like snakes. Symbolic of ominous forces such as darkness and the power of the sea, they “... were essentially male and female aspects of principles that are in part embodied in chaos.” Conjointly they could create life and bring into existence the sun god. Afterwards, the serpent would at least in part be a recurring motif for chaos in other myths as well, as is the case with Apophis who will be discussed later on. Yet almost paradoxically, snakes have the ability to fight chaos, symbolizing stability in a land otherwise full of turmoil. Indeed, “In Egyptian mythology the cobra goddess was a personification of female power, whose might helped to protect the gods against the abyss of chaos out of which they had evolved and Egyptian kings against their earthly enemies.”  

Depending on the context, snakes could be viewed as the cause of chaos or the balm to chaos. Wadjet was a cobra goddess who embraced this role of protecting pharaohs. Kings wore the uraeus on their brow to symbolize Wadjet and thus incur these benefits: “A prehistoric deity and symbol of the fertile Delta of Lower Egypt, Wadjet, together with Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt, signified the legitimacy of the crown of Egypt.” Renenutet, an Egyptian goddess of the harvest, was also depicted as a cobra. This depiction implies snakes as having an innate connection to the earth. By potentially possessing abilities to influence the size and well-being of the harvest, and also being associated with the fertility of the Nile, it is clear that snakes were directly tied to the life force of the people. This sentiment is echoed in the belief that Shai, a snake deity, was “... the personification of destiny, who determined both lifespan and the means of death” for the Ancient Egyptians.

Snakes were considered so divine that even Isis, one of the most beloved and widely worshipped figures in Ancient Egypt, was sometimes depicted with serpent-like features. She too was influenced by snakes, both in depictions of her body and stories centering around her actions. Yet this is not surprising considering Isis’s nature as a loving, compassionate, and crafty deity who dutifully acted as a loyal wife and mother. Apparently, “Cobras were considered especially good mothers and it is no coincidence that Isis and Neith, who were also considered good mothers, occasionally assumed cobra form.” Outside of her appearance, the connection between her and serpents goes deeper as there is a myth centered on how she acquired certain special powers, thanks to the help of a snake. According to the myth, Isis desired to possess the all-knowing and magical knowledge of the sun god Ra so that she would be able to have his powers of healing and spell casting. Since names were considered paramount parts of one’s identity and their subsequent skillset, the goddess devised a plan to forcibly extract Ra’s secret name by producing a venomous snake from his spit and mud from the earth. After it bit him, she succeeded in her quest by only treating Ra’s snakebite in exchange for the valuable information she sought. Here, once again the serpent is correlated with the terrestrial world, and is useful to a divine being’s fortune, even if at the expense of another’s.

One of the most important religious myths concerning snakes also features Ra. As the sun god, Ra journeys in his barge across the sky each and every day. His boat is elongated and akin to the shape of a serpent, which “... seems to indicate that all the deities and blessed dead accompanying the Sungod obey nature’s fateful law. Honoring the world-spirit incorporated by the snake, they surrender to the cycle of nature” just as Ra cyclically completes his own journey. In this serpentine-like sun barque Ra must also travel through the underworld each night, and during this perilous journey he encounters the malicious snake Apophis who tries to undermine his efforts by consuming the water the boat relies on for its travels. This action is a great existential threat since it “... threatens the regeneration of all the dead and even the continuity of the entire cosmos.” Undoubtedly such a disruption would launch the world into great chaos, so Apophis’s defeat was of great importance. The god Seth was usually depicted as his slayer since he was able to resist the evil eye of Apophis which was used to hypnotize Ra’s retinue and thus render them powerless. Seth’s steadfastness assured the security of the Ancient Egyptians against Apophis’s threats of complete and utter disarray. While Apophis was in no way kindly regarded due to his destructive reputation, there was another snake in the underworld called Mehen that actually helped Ra instead of harmed him. He protected both the sun god and Osiris from evil and ensured that Ra’s entrapped enemies did not escape. Whereas Apophis endangered the deceased, Mehen worked together with them to aid Ra, an important juxtaposition revealing the duplexity of serpent deities’ overall influence on others. Mehen is believed to have symbolized Ra’s “regenerative energy” and thus despite his underworld presence illustrated vitality and a commitment to Ra’s renewal of the sun and life itself. The capacity for renewal as exemplified by snakes such as Mehen was apparently idolized and coveted: “In spell 87 of the Book of the Dead, the deceased wishes to be transformed into a ‘son of the earth,’ that is, into a snake. In this form, the deceased hopes to share in the regenerative force of the snake god:

I am the ‘son of the earth,’

I am the snake which is within the limits of the earth;

(that is, not in the abysmal realm of the primeval darkness).

I pass the night and am reborn,

renewed and rejuvenated every day.”

Related to this idea of renewal, “The Egyptians created an ingenious image for the regenerative aspect of the snake: the image of the ouroboros-serpent whose body protectively circles the solar child of the new day.” The ouroboros symbol sometimes appeared in illustrations and one such portrayal depicts Osiris being safeguarded by it. It is possible that the depiction of the circular snake, whose ingestion of his own tail is symbolic of eternity and time, was a form of Mehen fulfilling his protective role. Ever aware of the complexities of nature and the decent and deplorable elements which color it, the ancient Egyptians’ use of Mehen and Apophis as underworld serpents fully expressed this contradiction.

In conclusion, many aspects of religious life in Ancient Egypt were entangled in serpentine symbolism, ranging from the portrayal of deities, the attire worn by royalty, and various spells and other important literary texts. In the eyes of the Ancient Egyptians, snakes served as a metaphor for life itself: something undeniably dangerous yet also meant to be revered despite their potential perils. Neither snakes nor life could be regarded as entirely good or bad, leading to a realistic and balanced view of the true nature of the world. Vivid snake imagery in the form of them moving along the earth grounded the Egyptians while the shape and constant shedding of their bodies reminded them of the complicated circle of life. The serpent was known as an image of immense power, whether it be malignant or beneficial to people, and was oft associated with the passage of time as it served as a bridge between the worlds of life and death. All in all, “The plethora of serpent deities, and the profusion of snakes and snake-like beings who writhed and slithered in the passageways of the Duat - some with human heads and limbs, others with multiple heads or heads at each end of the body- reflect the love-hate relationship that the living Egyptians enjoyed with the snakes who shared their land.” Today these incredible reptiles continue to inspire stories about their existence. There is no doubt that snakes can be scary to modern people as they were to those thousands of years ago, but if we are to learn one thing from the Ancient Egyptians, it is that they must also be respected as the otherworldly creatures of transformation and time they were thought to be.

Bibliography

Bailey, Donald M. “A Snake-Dionysos from Egypt, and Other Divine Snakes.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 93 (2007): 263-70.

Borghouts, J. F. “The Evil Eye of Apopis.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 59 (1973): 114-50.

Holland, Glenn S. Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient Near East. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010.

Ruiz, Ana. Spirit of Ancient Egypt. New York: Algora Publishing, 2001.

Schweizer, Andreas. The Sungod’s Journey Through the Netherworld: Reading the Ancient Egyptian Amduat. Edited by David Lorton. London: Cornell University Press, 2010.

Trigger, Bruce G. “Reviewed Work: The Cobra Goddess of Ancient Egypt: Predynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom Periods.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 25, no. 1 (1992): 149-50.

Tyldesley, Joyce. Myths & Legends of Ancient Egypt. London: Penguin Books, 2011.