Egyptian Amulets & Domestic Objects

Name: Egyptian Amulets & Domestic Objects
Author: Anonymous; recovered from settlements and burials

Anonymous; recovered from settlements and burials

Bes and Taweret are barely present in the funerary literature and everywhere in the archaeology of ordinary houses — painted on beds and headrests, worn as pendants. A pantheon reconstructed from temple walls and coffin texts misses the gods people actually lived with.

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What this text attests · 5

Name here	Rank given	#	Powers described
Bes	Protector of the household	—	Drives off snakes and bad dreams by noise and grimacing; painted on beds and headrests and worn as a pendant. He is absent from the funerary literature and ubiquitous in domestic finds. Almost uniquely in Egyptian art he is drawn facing the viewer rather than in profile.
Heqet	Protectress of birth	—	Worn as a frog amulet by women in labour and set in the birth chamber. Frog forms are among the commonest small protective objects in domestic Egyptian archaeology, which places her cult in the house rather than the temple.
Kheper = Khepri	Heart scarab	—	The scarab worn and buried as an amulet of becoming, the most numerous single amulet form in Egyptian archaeology.
Taurt = Taweret	Protectress of women in childbirth	—	Stands over the birth chamber. Her amulets are among the commonest protective objects in domestic Egyptian archaeology, far more numerous than images of the great state gods.
Wadjet	The uraeus	—	Worn as the rearing cobra on crowns and amulets, a protective form placed where a threat would arrive first.

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