Werethekau

Sources do not record a unified cosmogonic origin or narrative birth for Werethekau. Rather, she emerges in texts and material culture as the personified quality of hekau (magical power); her identity functions both as an independent goddess in some inscriptions and as an epithet or attribute attached to other deities and to royal and protective objects.

Iconography varies and appears to be uncommon; sources describe Werethekau sometimes as a snake or as a lion-headed woman and, when associated with Ra-Horakhty, depicted with his solar disk on her head. At the same time at least one source notes she was seldom depicted in reliefs or papyri, indicating that visual representations are inconsistent and relatively rare.

Werethekau embodies the efficacy of magic (heka) and serves a chiefly protective function. Her name and image are placed on funerary objects and weapons so the deceased can defend themselves in the underworld, on ivory knives as charms to protect pregnant and nursing mothers, and she is described as an inherent power of the Crowns of Egypt and as dwelling in the state sanctuary. She is frequently used as an epithet for goddesses such as Isis, Sekhmet, and Mut, signaling that her power is both an independent divine force and an attribute conferred through other deities.