The Spitting Cobra (15 page)

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A Little Bit About Cobras

Cobras are easily recognised because of their habit of rearing up and spreading their ‘hoods’. The cobra found by Hopi and Seti is a red spitting cobra, the only kind of spitting cobra that exists in Egypt today. The cobra’s colouring varies. In Egypt it is generally olive brown, with a dark patch below the eye, but south of Egypt (in Kenya, for example), it tends to be red, which is how it got its name. When threatened, spitting cobras squirt a stream of venom at their victim’s eyes. Hopi did exactly the right thing by throwing liquid into Seti’s face. If the venom is not washed out, it damages the cornea and the person can go blind.

I chose this snake because of the villagers’ beliefs about Meretseger. There are accounts of people pleading with the cobra goddess to restore their sight, having been struck blind. Eye complaints were common in ancient Egypt, but it occurred to me that there might have been spitting cobras around the village. In fact, though, red spitting cobras tend to live in semi-arid areas where there is some vegetation, so on the whole they would be found closer to the Nile.

As well as spitting cobras, there would have been plenty of Egyptian cobras in the area. These snakes were greatly feared. They don’t spit, but they bite, and their venom is deadly.

In case you’re wondering, the snake found by Hopi at the beginning of the book is a diadem snake that feeds mostly on rodents. Diadem snakes are perfectly harmless to humans. Today, some people keep them as pets.

There were a number of cobra goddesses in ancient Egypt. As well as Meretseger and Renenutet, who are both mentioned in the story, there was Wadjet, the goddess who protected Lower Egypt (the Delta area and the north). Nekhbet, a vulture goddess, protected Upper Egypt, so this is why there was always a cobra and a vulture on the crowns of Egyptian kings.

Several hieroglyphs are based on cobras. There’s one of a cobra rearing up with its hood spread out, one rearing up from a basket, one wriggling along the ground, and a number of others.

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Set Maat and the Great Place

Set Maat (which means the ‘Place of Truth’) and the Great Place still exist today. The ruins of Set Maat, the tomb-builders’ village, are now called Deir el Medina, while the dry desert valley that holds the kings’ tombs is called the Valley of the Kings. The village was created specially as a place for the kings’ craftsmen to live in while they worked on the royal tombs. Ancient Egyptian history spans about 3,000 years, but this village thrived for only 400 of them – very roughly, from 1500–1100 BC, during the New Kingdom. Before and after that, Egypt’s kings lived further north and were buried there, too.

The craftsmen of Set Maat were well paid by the government, so they could afford to live well. If you look at a book about the Valley of the Kings, you can see how beautiful their work was – many of the tombs have survived, along with their amazing paintings. Some of the villagers’ own tombs have also survived. They are smaller, but perhaps more interesting – while royal tombs are covered in formal paintings of the gods, the villagers’ tombs have beautiful, brightly coloured paintings of the life they hoped to live in the Next World.

Probably the most famous tomb built by the villagers is the tomb of Tutankhamun. It is famous because it was discovered in 1922 with many of its treasures intact, including the king’s stunning gold mask. By the time of this story, the boy king was already lying safely in his tomb. Very few Egyptian kings were lucky enough to lie undisturbed for so long.

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Tomb Robberies in Ancient Egypt

You may be surprised to learn that many tombs were robbed by the ancient Egyptians themselves. Everyone knew that royalty and wealthy people were buried with lots of treasure and, as far back as the Old Kingdom, robbers found a way to steal it. In fact, the reason the Great Place existed at all was to hide the kings’ tombs away from robbers. The kings thought that in this dry, desert valley, tucked away from public view, their rock-cut tombs would be safe.

They were wrong. And what’s a little bit shocking is that even the villagers of Set Maat were involved in some of the robberies. There are several accounts of villagers being put on trial, accused of stealing royal goods; in one case, it seems that a group of thieves from Waset actually murdered a villager who was in on their plot.

At first, robbers targeted private tombs or the tombs of queens and lesser royals, because they were less heavily guarded. In some cases, they broke through the tomb door; in other cases, they tunnelled through the rock, as they do in this story. But it was only a matter of time before gangs of thieves set to work on the kings’ tombs, too.

When the robbers got inside, the tombs were ransacked and their contents hacked to pieces. Furniture was stripped of its gold, sarcophagi were tipped over, and mummies were ripped apart or even burned so that the thieves could take the precious amulets hidden among the wrappings.

Towards the end of the New Kingdom, the priests of Amun in Waset decided to move some of the kings’ bodies, give them a new set of wrappings and hide them outside their tombs to keep them safe. So the mummies of some of Egypt’s most famous kings – Seti I, Ramesses II and III, for example – were actually found jumbled together in a tomb-shaft high in the cliffs, near the mortuary temple of a famous queen called Hatshepsut. What’s also probable, though, is that moving the kings was a good excuse for the priests to open up their tombs and take some of the treasure themselves.

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GODS AND GODDESSES

Ancient Egyptian religion was very complicated. There wasn’t just one god, but hundreds, each symbolising something different. Many of them were linked to a particular animal or plant. The Egyptians believed that their king or pharaoh was one of the gods, too.

Not everyone worshipped the same gods. It would have been very difficult to worship all of them, because there were so many. Some gods were more important than others, and some places had special gods of their own. People would have had their favourites depending on where they lived and what they did.

These are some of the most important gods of the New Kingdom, and all the special ones that are mentioned in this book.

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Amun
The great god of Waset (Thebes), a creator god and god of the air. When Waset became very powerful in the New Kingdom, he was combined with the sun god Re and became
Amun-Re
. He was shown with tall feathers on his head, or with a ram’s head.

Anubis
The god of mummies and embalming. He was usually shown with a jackal’s head.

Apep
The great snake god of darkness, chaos and evil. He was usually shown as an enormous serpent, but sometimes as a crocodile or even a dragon.

Bes
A god who was worshipped in people’s homes, rather than at shrines and temples. He was shown as a bearded dwarf, often with his tongue sticking out, and was believed to protect people’s houses, pregnant women and children.

Hathor
A goddess of fertility, love, music and dancing. She was usually shown as a cow, or a woman with a cow’s head, or a woman with a cow’s ears and horns.

Horus
The falcon-headed king of the gods, who fought and won a battle with his evil uncle Seth. The reigning king of Egypt was believed to be the embodiment of Horus.

Isis
The mother of Horus and wife of Osiris, the goddess of motherhood and royal protection. She was associated with the goddess Hathor.

Khepri
The scarab god, the god of the rising sun. It was believed that he pushed the sun up every morning in the same way that a scarab pushes its ball of dung.

Khonsu
The moon god of Waset, worshipped in the great temple complex there. He was the adopted son of Mut.

Ma’at
The goddess of truth and justice, balance and order, who helped to judge people’s hearts after their death.

Meretseger
A cobra goddess worshipped by the villagers of Set Maat, who believed that she lived on the mountain behind the village. She was seen as a vengeful goddess who would punish the villagers if they did wrong.

Mut
The great mother goddess of Waset, worshipped with Amun and Khonsu. Because Waset is often called Thebes, these three are known as the ‘Theban Triad’.

Osiris
Husband of Isis, father of Horus and brother of the evil god Seth. He was the king of the underworld, so he was usually shown as a mummy.

Re
(or
Ra
) The sun god, who travelled across the sky every day in a
barque
(boat).

Renenutet
The cobra goddess of fertility, of nursing children and of the harvest. Farmers in particular would make offerings to her so that she would protect their crops.

Serqet
The goddess of scorpions. She was believed to cure the stings and bites of all dangerous creatures like snakes and scorpions.

Seth
The brother of Osiris, the god of chaos, evil and the Red Land. He was shown with the head of a strange dog-like creature that has never been identified.

Sobek
The ancient Egyptian crocodile god. On the whole, he was feared by the Egyptians, but he was sometimes seen as a god of fertility, too. There were two big cult temples to Sobek – one in the north, and one south of Waset at a place that is now called Kom Ombo.

Tawaret
A hippopotamus goddess who protected children and women, particularly during childbirth. Like Bes, Tawaret was worshipped in people’s homes rather than in temples.

Thoth
The god of writing and scribes. He was shown as an ibis, or with the head of an ibis.

GLOSSARY

acacia
A small, thorny tree. Some types of acacia grow particularly well in dry, desert regions.

alabaster
A whitish stone that is quite soft and easily carved. The Egyptians used it to make many beautiful objects.

amulet
A lucky charm, worn to protect a person from evil.

Black Land
The rich, fertile land close to the Nile, where the ancient Egyptians felt safe. They lived and grew their crops here.

carnelian
A reddish stone used by the Egyptians to make jewellery.

cowrie
A kind of shell used widely across Africa since ancient times. It has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and is believed to have symbolised fertility.

emmer wheat
The type of wheat that was grown in ancient Egypt. Barley was the other main food crop.

faience
A sort of ceramic with a coloured glaze (often blue), used to make jewellery and amulets.

fat-tailed scorpion
A very dangerous scorpion that is usually yellow with a wide tail. There is also a black variety. Its sting has been known to kill people.