Renenutet
Although serpentine in form, Renenutet (Egyptian for ‘snake who nourishes’) was a popular and beneficent deity. Protective in nature and of a nurturing rather than venomous disposition, she was a goddess of the harvest and a divine nurse. In the Old Kingdom Renenutet was venerated as a guardian of the king in this life and in the beyond, being identified, like Wadjet, with the flame-breathing royal uraeus and also the king’s robe ‘of which the gods are afraid’. In the latter aspect she came to be sometimes associated with the bandages of the mummy. Her aspect as a goddess of fertility and harvest is clearly denoted in her epithets ‘lady of the fertile land’, ‘lady of the threshing floor’ and ‘lady of the granaries’, and her role in this area may have originated in the imagery of the serpent who protects the crops and store grain alike. Renenutet was also identified with the household and family life in her role as provider, nourisher and as a nurse of infants. The interrelationships of the goddess with other deities were extensive. In the Fayum Renenutet came to be linked with Sobek and Horus as a member of a triad named by the Greeks Hermouthis, Sekonopos and Ankhoes. As a grain goddess she was identified as the mother of Osiris in his form of the child Nepri, and in the Book of the Dead Renenutet is said to be the mother of Horus by Atum and thus came to be identified with Isis, with whom she shared the trait of divine nurse. Her associations with children also identified her with Meskhenet as a birth goddess and with Hathor whose headdress she wore. In the New Kingdom Litany of Re she appears in the underworld as the ‘Lady of Justification’ and in this form she may be associated with the goddess Maat. Finally, in the Late Period, like the god Shay, Renenutet was associated with the idea of fate and destiny, deciding not only the length of an individual’s life but also many of its events.
The iconography of Renenutet is most frequently that of an erect cobra with a sun disk and horns atop its head, often with two tall plumes surmounting the solar disk. The goddess may also be depicted anthropomorphically as a woman or a woman with a snake’s head, standing or enthroned and sometimes holding or nursing a child which may be her son Nepri or a more generalized infant. In vignettes of the Litany of Re Renenutet is depicted as a mummiform being with the head of a cobra, through this is a specialized iconography not usually applied to the goddess. Sometimes she is the object of veneration of minor gods as in a granary at Karnak where the god Hapy was shown presenting offerings to her. Terracotta figures of the Ptolemaic Period depict the goddess as a form of Isis with a snake’s head rising from a woman’s body or with a woman’s head atop a snake.
While amulets depicting the goddess show she may have functioned as a protective deity, it was a as a goddess of fecundity that Renenutete was most widely venerated and the goddess was popular among agricultural workers especially. The festivals of Renenutete were celebrated in the last month of the season when crops were sown, and in the following month, the first month of the summer season when they began to ripe. From Middle Kingdom times onwards we have evidence of the cult of the goddess in the Fayum where large scale crop production was accomplished, and her cult in the city of Dja (modern Medinet Madi) was particularly strong. She was also evidently venerated at Terenuthis (Kom Abu Billo) in the Delta, and in the New Kingdom we find evidence of her worship at Giza, and especially at Thebes. We know Renenutete was honoured in shrines erected in harvest fields and vineyard and during the harvest and the pressing of grapes offerings were made before her image. Shrines dedicated to the goddess were also placed in magazines and granaries where the harvested crops were stored. The affection of the ancient Egyptians for this goddess is clear. As a much loved deity, Renenutete even survived the pagan era in that she was ultimately transformed into the Greek Thermouthis who was later venerated as a Christian saint. "One day, the city was plagued by rats that were sneaking into the barns and trying to eat the entire harvest. The people suffered and prayed to the gods, asking them to help them. The goddess Renenutet heeded their prayers. She appeared to the high priest in the temple and said she would help, but he must ask everyone not to leave their homes under any circumstances the following night. The next night, the city was overrun by snakes. They devoured all the rats that were eating the grain, but fatally bit those who disobeyed the goddess and went out into the streets. By morning, the snakes had disappeared, along with the rats."
