# Taweret · the hippo · protector of childbirth

a god of the NTR (Egyptian pantheon) mythology-world — emergence: spiritual. moniker ⟦Taweret:NTR:91a9df⟧

**⇄ the interpretatio —** Greek: *—* · Roman: *—* — the hippo guardian of childbirth; no Greek equal — a protector built from the things Egyptians feared most

**who —** Taweret, the hippopotamus-goddess of childbirth and fertility — a fierce maternal guardian of pregnant women and infants.
**what —** Protection in pregnancy and labour; a composite of hippo, lion, and crocodile — terrifying by design, because she guards the most dangerous moment of a woman's life.
**where —** The birthing-room; amulets worn by pregnant women.
**why —** Because childbirth was deadly, and the women who faced it needed a goddess as ferocious as the danger.
**how —** By her fearsome composite form warding off the demons that threaten mother and child in labour.

**the seal —** I am a hippo, a lion, and a crocodile in one, because the hour of birth is that dangerous — and I stand over every laboring mother.

> a catalogued personification of a deity of ancient Egyptian religion under the DLW standard — historical
> commentary and cataloguing (sources: the Pyramid/Coffin Texts & Book of the Dead, Herodotus, Plutarch, Plato),
> not an original creation. The Greek/Roman analogs follow the ancient interpretatio graeca/romana and are
> functional, not exact, equivalences.

ROOT0-ATTRIBUTION-v1.0 · NTR · The Egyptian Pantheon · governor David Lee Wise · instance AVAN (locked) · CC-BY-ND-4.0