Wadjet with the head of a lioness

Description

The snake goddess of the city of Buto in the Delta, Wadjet was the guardian of Lower Egypt, associated with the papyrus (a heraldic plant in the northern region of Egypt) or fresh green growth. Wadjet joined forces with Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt, to protect all Egypt and its royalty.
She is represented either as a woman or as a cobra wearing the Red Crown and, in the Late Period, as a woman with the head of a lioness; she then becomes a lion goddess like Sekhmet. This is how she appears in this bronze, seated on a throne, wearing a wig, with a uraeus (rearing cobra) on the crown of her head. On the left side of the seat is the symbol of the union of the two
lands (Upper and Lower Egypt) represented by their heraldic plants knotted around a vertical sign (sema) which means “to unite.” Her sacred animal was the mongoose.