Which cobra goddess is associated with the Theban necropolis?

Which cobra goddess is associated with the Theban necropolis? Meretseger is the answer.

Meretseger was a cobra goddess who guarded the Theban Necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, especially the Valley of the Kings. Her name is usually translated as “She Who Loves Silence,” an apt title for the silent desert cemetery where Egypt’s rulers and nobles were buried.

Her cult was especially prominent during the New Kingdom, roughly 1550–1070 BCE, when royal tomb building made western Thebes a major sacred landscape. She was closely connected with el-Qurn, the sharply pointed mountain overlooking the Valley of the Kings, which was regarded as her sacred hill and sometimes as her physical embodiment.

Meretseger was feared as a punisher of tomb robbers, oath-breakers, and workers who violated sacred rules, but she could also forgive and heal those who sincerely repented. Artisans from Deir el-Medina left prayers and commemorative stelae to her. She was a local Theban protector, not the same figure as Wadjet, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt.