Egyptian Cobra
The Egyptian Cobra is a symbol of strength, influence, and sovereignty
This is our symbol from seven thousand years… the symbol of the crown of kings
Suppose countries choose symbols from the reality of their environment and land that express their power, influence and control. In that case, Egypt, the first country in human history, has no right to choose for it a symbol of its strength and is the strongest and most prosperous Egyptian era, which is the ancient Egyptian era. Egypt chose the “cobra snake” as its symbol, so what is the story of this symbol?
The “Egyptian cobra” is one of the snakes described as the largest type of Cobra in the ancient African continent. It occupied a special place among the ancient Egyptians. The inscriptions and pictures came in the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, which dates back to the era of the 18th dynasty, to show us the extent of the ancient Egyptian reverence for these reptiles. Those inscriptions show two types of images of this snake, one of which shows the disc of the sun with a cobra and its head crossed through the “ankh” sign, which is the key to life, and the other in which it advances on the falcon of Horus wearing the double crown of united Egypt.
The “double crown” is the biggest evidence that the Egyptian Cobra symbolized power, influence and sovereignty in ancient Egyptian times. They even added it to the unified crown next to the Egyptian Vulture, which represented the gods “Nakhbet”, the protector and patroness of Upper Egypt.
And in the era of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians revered the Cobra. They put it in the ranks of the gods, so it symbolized the gods “Wajit” and its meaning in the ancient Egyptian language “green”, and it was the patron and protector of Lower Egypt. It was an emblem on the crown of its rulers, and after the union with Upper Egypt, it became a common protector For Upper and Lower Egypt, which was evident in the double crown.
And the goddess Wajit was depicted in the form of a woman with a snake’s head, a snake with a woman’s head, or as a full snake, or a woman with a doubleheader in the form of two snakes.
As a shepherd and protector, Wajit took the role of the protector of “Ra”. She appeared wrapped on his head, and in this image, she became a symbol of her in the royal crowns as well, as she appears on the forehead of the ancient Egyptian. As for her first perception, that was in the pre-dynastic era, in which she appears in the form of a cobra wrapped around a papyrus leg.
The Cobra was also associated in the past with the god “Hathor”, the sun god of the ancient Egyptians, where the ancient Egyptian believed that the Milky Way was nothing but a snake seeking in the sky. Because it was spitting poison in the eyes of its enemies, it was called the “Lady of Flame”.
In the ancient myths, even the gods Wajit, the goddess of Bhutto, appeared in the image of the protective deities when Isis sought help from her and left her son Horus to be in her care so that Isis could search for the chest in which the evil god Seth imprisoned his brother Osiris and I found it in the Nile.