Protective
Reshep
ršpwHow it changed
A Syrian-Canaanite war and plague god brought into Egypt during the New Kingdom, when contact with the Levant was heaviest, and taken up at the official level: several kings invoke him as a giver of victory. His example, with those of Anat, Astarte and Qetesh, is the clearest evidence that the Egyptian pantheon stayed open to foreign gods rather than sealed against them.
Cult centre
Adopted into Egypt; no ancient cult city of his own there
Best attested
New Kingdom, imported from the Levant
Family
- ConsortGrouped with Qetesh and Anat on New Kingdom stelae
Grouped in Egyptian sources with the Syrian goddesses Anat and Qetesh.
Epithets
- “Lord of the sky”
- “Lord of eternity”
How to recognise the figure
A warrior brandishing a mace or an axe, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt with a gazelle head at the brow in place of the royal cobra.
Others in this group