Renenutet

Renenutet was a deity of fertility and the harvest, and she was especially popular with agricultural workers. Renenutet was honored in shrines that were located in fields and vineyards, and grain was often stored within her temples. Offerings of the first fruits were made and hymns were sung to a statue of Renenutet when grain was brought to the granary or when wine was stored in the cellar.

Renenutet was considered to be a goddess of riches and good fortune, as snakes protected the harvest from rats and mice. Cobra figurines have been found during excavations covered with cooking soot, suggesting Renenutet also provided protection for the kitchen. She was also a protector of linen, especially mummy bandages.

Renenutet was associated with the nourishing and healing powers of mother’s milk and with food of all kinds. Renenutet was invoked as a form of a “guardian angel” upon a newborn, which was said to “have Renenutet upon his shoulder from his first day.” She also gave children their ren (secret name-souls) with their mother’s milk. Cobra-shaped bowls, used for holding milk, have been found. Representations exist of Renenutet carrying and protecting a child, a form of the grain god Neper. The pharaoh was also claimed to be her child, the goddess nursing him from birth to death.

The Hymn of Renenutet says: “I will make the Nile swell for you, without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land, so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit. The land of Egypt is beginning to stir again, the shores are shining wonderfully, and wealth and well-being dwell with them, as it had been before.”

Renenutet was thought be the wife of Geb. Renenutet’s consort was sometimes considered to be Sobek, and their son Horus.

Eventually Renenutet was identified as an alternate form of the more popular cobra-goddess Wadjet.