Portal:The arts/Featured picture/February, 2006



In Egyptian mythology, 'Tawaret' (also spelt Taurt, Tuat, Taueret, Tuart, Ta-weret, Taweret, and Taueret, and in Greek, Thoeris and Toeris) was originally the demon-wife of Apep, the original god of evil. Since Apep was viewed as residing below the horizon, and only present at night, evil during the day was envisaged as being a result of Tawaret's maleficence. As the counterpart of Apep, who was always below the horizon, Tawaret was seen as being the northern sky, the constellation roughly covering the area of present-day Draco, which always lies above the horizon. Thus Tawaret was known as mistress of the horizon, and was depicted as such on the ceiling of the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. In art, Tawaret was depicted as a composite of all the things the Egyptians feared, the major part of her being hippopotamus, since this is what the constellation most resembled, with the arms and legs of a lioness, and with the back of a crocodile.