Renenutet- Egyptian GodDeity"Lady of the Fertile Fields"

Lady of the Harvest

Renenutet presided over Egypt's grain from planting through the final threshing. Farmers offered the first fruits of the harvest to her at threshing floors throughout the country, and her image, a rearing cobra or a woman with a cobra's head, was placed in granaries to protect stored grain from vermin. She was also depicted as a cobra suckling the infant pharaoh: the same goddess who fed Egypt through the harvest also fed the king. At the moment of a child's birth, she determined its fortune and destiny. The power that made grain grow also decided whether a human life would flourish.

The Faiyum Cult

Renenutet's primary cult center was in the Faiyum, the fertile depression southwest of Memphis irrigated by the Bahr Yussef canal from the Nile. There she was worshipped alongside Sobek, the crocodile god. Temples dedicated to her at Medinet Madi, built by Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV of the Twelfth Dynasty, are among the best-preserved Middle Kingdom temples in Egypt.

Isis-Thermouthis

In the Ptolemaic period, Renenutet was identified with Isis-Thermouthis, a serpentine form of Isis. Greco-Roman terracotta figurines show a woman with a serpent's lower body holding grain sheaves: the cobra goddess and the great mother fused into one.