Heqet
Egyptian · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Heqet is a frog, and in Egypt that is a compliment. The flood comes and the frogs come with it, in numbers, out of ground that had been dry — which is as good a picture of life restarting as the landscape offers. She works with Khnum: he throws the body on a potter's wheel, she puts the breath in it, and then it goes into the mother. Midwives called themselves her servants, and pregnant women wore frog amulets. The registry held Khnum without her.
Domains
- childbirth
- fertility
Relations
- consort of: KhnumKhnum throws the body on his wheel; Heqet breathes into it. A division of labour between potter and kiln.Reference treatment of Heqet as the wife of Khnum, the two of them partnering to create human beings. (secondary)
Sources
- Heqet is the Egyptian frog goddess of fertility and childbirth, wife of Khnum, who breathes life into the bodies he moulds, and whose name midwives bore as a title.: Reference treatments of Heqet, her frog form, her partnership with Khnum and her role in childbirth. (secondary)