Your Field Guide to Spotting Taweret (Opet)
If you need us to tell you what a giant hippopotamus looks like, you need to pay more attention in school. But Taweret isn't just an ordinary hippopotamus. She's a composite deity, made of pieces of a bunch of different animals that scared the ancient Egyptians. Think of her as a zoological Transformer.
Sex: Female
Age: Adult
Build: Hippopotamus head and body, lion arms and legs, crocodile tail (or a crocodile on her head as a hat, whose tail falls down her back and looks like her own tail)
Complexion: Brown or grey skin
Hair Color: Black (if she's wearing a wig), green if she's wearing a crocodile on her head!
Facial Hair: None
Scars/marks/tattoos: None
Jewelry and accessories: Taweret often carries a sa, a looped hieroglyph that means "protection," or an ankh, the hieroglyph for "life." Sometimes she wears the headdresses of Isis and/or Hathor—with their permission, of course.
Clothing: Hippos don't wear clothes, silly! And neither do hippos with lion limbs….
Armor: None
Type of Weapon: Sometimes a super big knife
Typical Companions
Sobek, Ammit, Wadjet, Isis, the stars of the Northern Hemisphere
Known Hangouts
The maternity ward
Nurseries
The Nile
Preschools