Bes and Taweret: Ancient Egypt's Household Guardians

Who were Bes and Taweret?

They were the gods ordinary Egyptians turned to for protection at home, especially around pregnancy, birth and the dangerous night. The great state gods like Amun lived in temples few people could enter; Bes and Taweret lived on the bedposts.

Bes: why was a fierce dwarf a friendly god?

Bes looked frightening on purpose: his grimace, lolling tongue and weapons were aimed at the evil forces that threatened sleepers, mothers and children. He is one of the very few Egyptian gods regularly shown full-face rather than in profile, staring the viewer down. He wears a crown of tall feathers, often a lion skin, and brandishes knives, snakes or a tambourine, because noise and dancing were thought to drive spirits away.

"Bes" is really a family of similar dwarf-lion deities that Egyptologists group together; the name itself is attested only late, and earlier versions are called Aha ("fighter") among others. Where his image came from is debated; older theories of an origin in Nubia or further south are now treated with caution. By the New Kingdom he was everywhere: carved on headrests and beds, on mirrors and kohl pots, and painted in houses. Musicians, dancers and soldiers adopted him, and in the Roman period he became a protector of the army and had an oracle at Abydos, mentioned by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus in the 4th century AD. At Saqqara, excavators in the early 20th century found Ptolemaic "Bes chambers" painted with large Bes figures, which are usually interpreted as places where pilgrims slept in hope of healing or fertility dreams, though that reading is not certain.

Taweret: why a hippopotamus?

Female hippos are fiercely protective of their young and among the most dangerous animals on the Nile, so the Egyptians recruited that ferocity to guard human mothers. Taweret, "the Great One", stands upright with a swollen belly, lion's paws, pendulous human breasts and the back and tail of a crocodile. She usually rests a paw on the sa hieroglyph, meaning "protection", and sometimes holds an ankh or a torch to light the dark.

She is closely related to, and often indistinguishable from, other hippo goddesses called Ipet and Reret. In astronomy, a hippopotamus figure carrying a crocodile marked a constellation of the northern sky, shown on astronomical ceilings such as the one in the tomb of Seti I. Plutarch, writing about AD 100, mentions a hippo goddess he calls Thoueris as a concubine of Seth who deserted to Horus's side, a late tale with little support in Egyptian sources. Taweret's image spread to Minoan Crete, where the so-called "Minoan genius" figure is generally thought to derive from her.

How did Egyptians use Bes and Taweret at home?

Through objects: amulets worn by mothers and children, images on furniture, and carved ivory "magic wands" used to mark out a protected space around mother and baby. The wands, curved blades cut from hippopotamus tusk in the Middle Kingdom (about 2000–1700 BC), are engraved with a procession of protective figures, including a Taweret-like hippo and a lion-faced dwarf, and some carry the inscription that they protect a named child "by day and by night".

At Deir el-Medina, the workmen's village at Luxor, many houses had a raised platform in the front room, sometimes painted with Bes figures, which excavators have linked to childbirth or household cult (its exact use is debated). Even at Akhenaten's city of Amarna, where the state promoted the Aten alone, archaeologists found Bes and Taweret amulets in ordinary homes. For more on family life see women in ancient Egypt.

Beyond Egypt and into pop culture

Bes in particular travelled widely: Phoenician, Cypriot and later Roman craftsmen copied his image across the Mediterranean. It is often said that the Spanish island of Ibiza takes its name from him, via the Phoenician name of the island, but that etymology is disputed among linguists. Taweret reached a new audience in 2022 as a character in the Marvel television series Moon Knight; the show's friendly hippo guide of the dead is a modern invention, as Taweret had no such role in Egyptian religion.

Where to see Bes and Taweret in Egypt today

Museum cases are the surest bet, since both gods mostly appear on small objects, but a few temples show them on a grand scale.

• Dendera Temple: in the Roman birth house (mammisi) in front of the main Hathor temple, large figures of Bes stand on the blocks above the column capitals, watching over the divine birth celebrated inside.
• Egyptian Museum, Cairo: a superb green stone statue of Taweret, dedicated at Karnak in the 26th Dynasty, plus many Bes amulets and vessels; check that items have not moved to the GEM.
• Grand Egyptian Museum: look at Tutankhamun's three ritual couches: one has the heads of a hippopotamus with crocodile features, identified by some as Taweret and by others as Ammit.
• Tomb of Seti I: Taweret's hippopotamus constellation on the astronomical ceiling of the burial chamber.
• Deir el-Medina: the house foundations of the village, and Bes figures among the tomb decorations.