Meretseger at Western Thebes - Dier el Medina
Egyptian Gods and Their Cult Centers

Enrich your trip to Egypt, learn more about the Ancient Gods whose monuments and temples you will s e on your Egypt Tour. Take day tours around Cairo to Memphis and Saqqara for sites of Gods of Lower Egypt. Travel by prearranged speciality excursions for the Gods of Middle Egypt. Many monuments and temples for the God of Upper Egypt are located in and around Luxor. Tours of Abydos and Dendera can be made by special arrangement. Visit other sites in Upper Egypt by Nile Cruise, Elephantine Island, home of Khnum the creator god is located in Aswan.

Meretseger

Meretseger protected the Theban Necropolis, the Valley of the Kings and all other tombs in Western Thebes. She dwelt at the pyramid shaped peak. There is a shrine to her near the Valley of the Queens.

She is generally portrayed as a cobra with a woman's head. She was worshiped locally by the Workmen of Deir el Medina.

Meretseger is one of the lesser gods. She is not well known because she was a god that never left her geographic locale. Her job was to protect the Theban Necropolis and her worshipers were the New Kingdom workmen who built the tombs of the Pharaohs and his nobles. When the workmen's village was shut down during the time of the later Ramesses Kings, she was forgotten.

During the New Kingdom, from the time of Ahmose and the reunification until the decline of the last of the Rameses, Meretseger's cult center was well tended by the priests and the local workmen's village.

The lesser gods were worshiped by common Egyptians during their daily lives. These gods were often local and connected with natural landscape features, nature, or they were remnants of older religious beliefs that were still cherished when official religion changed.

The tombs of the workmen have sometimes been a better source of the religious beliefs held by the common Egyptians than the tombs of the Pharaoh's.

Sennedjem, one of the tomb workers, lives forever on his tomb walls with his wife and Nut giving them the bounty of the Tree of Life.

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