Egyptian+Sin+&+Punishment

(By: Jenny Shaba) (Group Members: Jenny Shaba. Kyle Alsheskie, Julian Pierce, and Neal Weeratunga)

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Meretseger: Goddess of Punishment and Mercy
Meretseger is the goddess of punishment and mercy. S he watched over the dead in their tombs, protecting them and their belongings from tomb robbers. She also protected the area from criminals and oath breakers, striking all those with evil intent down with snakebites or with blindness. The workmen feared her presence and begged for mercy. One of her common attacks would be causing a sort of blindness or a venomous snake bite. Meretseger was a merciful goddess known for giving forgiveness to those repenting. She was known to only show her presence near the tombs and new buildings of New Kingdom pharaohs.



Her symbol was a cobra or a woman with a cobra like head. There are many forms in which she took besides those. Such as, a three headed snake. Meretseger loved silence. She lived on a mountain peak shaped like a pyramid. Meretseger became the personification of the peak. She did not move - the people who revered had to be near the peak. When the royal tombs died out in the 21st dynasty, the worship of Meretseger died out. She was often associated with Ptah. Ptah wasthe patron of craftsman and the workers were craftsman. As people rarely visited the mountain, they were soon forgotten. They had a chapel was built in honor of them both.



Analysis
 Meretseger gave many people worry and hope. Meretseger was a goddess who struck fright into the hearts of the citizens of Waset, nevertheless she was also a forgiving divinity. Sin was not part of the Egyptian way of thinking - they followed ma'at, and any variation from this was chaos, rather than sin. Yet Meretseger had the Egyptians calling themselves out on their wrongdoings, and asking the goddess for mercy. This was a very strange condition in ancient Egypt, the idea of remorse from sin. None of the other protective/vengeful deities had such an abnormal impact on the thought pattern of the everyday Egyptian as did this one goddess. She was a goddess who sheltered and healed those who confessed to their sins, and asked for her mercy. Fixed to the peak of one mountain, she watched over the public who labored in the necropolis of Waset. And when nobody worked in the necropolis, there was no longer a need for her protection, and so her worship faded as the people left to bury the dead in other areas of Egypt.

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