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Protective
Mafdet
mꜣfdtProtection from snakes and scorpionsJustice and execution
How it changed
One of the earliest deities in the record and a straightforwardly useful one: a hunting cat set against the snakes and scorpions that could kill a person in a night. From killing vermin she became the agent of judicial death, the claws that tear the condemned, and she guards the king in the Pyramid Texts against exactly the venomous things her living counterpart hunted.
Cult centre
None fixed; present in the palace and the tomb
Best attested
Early Dynastic onward, one of the oldest goddesses attested
Family
None fixed.
Epithets
- “Lady of the House of Life”
How to recognise the figure
A feline, a cheetah, mongoose or genet, sometimes shown running up an executioner's pole.
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