Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · statue

Statue of Taweret

Source of record: Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

<p>Ancient Egyptians believed the goddess Taweret, whose name translates as "the Great One," offered protection to women during pregnancy and childbirth. She is represented as a hippopotamus with a swollen belly, pendulous human breasts, the limbs of a lion, and the back and tail of a crocodile. Taweret was a benevolent deity and was commonly depicted on amulets. Underscoring her function as a protector, she holds the hieroglyph "sa," meaning protection, in each hand, (the cartouches on her shoulders were added at a later date, and have so far escaped a definitive reading). Although her cult gained great importance, she had no temples of her own.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/22.223' rel='external'>Statue of Taweret</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>

Connections

Deities Taweret

Cross-references (2)

  • Walters-AccNum 22.223 tier-2
  • Walters-id 6873 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.