Renenutet was the cobra goddess of the harvest who nursed and protected the pharaoh.
Renenutet was an ancient Egyptian goddess of grain, grapes, nourishment, fertility, and the harvest. She was usually depicted as a cobra or as a woman with a cobra’s head, reflecting both the protective power of a serpent and the importance of guarding Egypt’s food supply.
Her name is linked with verbs meaning to nurse, rear, or fondle. In that role, she cared for the pharaoh from birth to death and was strongly associated with milk and breastfeeding. She was also called “mistress of provisions” and “who maintains everybody,” making her a divine provider as well as an agricultural deity.
Renenutet’s worship reached kitchens, granaries, vineyards, wine cellars, and ovens. Egyptians offered her produce during harvest and placed her images near stored food, where she was believed to protect provisions from insects, mice, and snakes. Her cult center included Terenuthis, while a temple at Medinet Madi honored her alongside Sobek, whose Nile flooding supplied fertile silt.
She is sometimes confused with Wadjet, another cobra goddess. Later traditions increasingly identified the two, but Wadjet was especially the cobra protector shown on the pharaoh’s crown.