River and land

Sobek

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The NileCrocodilesMilitary powerFertility

How it changed

A study in how Egyptians handled a genuinely dangerous animal: they made it a god and gave it a temple with a lake. Sobek is aggression put to work, guarding the pharaoh and clearing the way for the dead. Mummified crocodiles were buried in enormous numbers at Kom Ombo and in the Faiyum, some of them hatchlings raised for the purpose.

Cult centre

Kom Ombo and the Faiyum

Best attested

Old Kingdom onward, prominent in the Twelfth Dynasty and again under the Ptolemies

Family

Variously son of Neith; identified with Ra as Sobek-Ra.

Epithets

“Lord of Bakhu”
“He who makes the herbage green”

How to recognise the figure

A crocodile, or a crocodile-headed man, often with a plumed sun-disc crown.

Others in this group

Hapi

Aswan and Gebel el-Silsila, at the river rather than in a city

Min

Coptos and Akhmim