Tea Time
As the protector of the Old Kingdom Re, she is noted for decapitating the sun god's enemies with her razor sharp teeth. Her long and deadly claws represent the barbs on the pharaoh's harpoon used to protect the king against his enemies in the underworld of Wesir, and her ferocity prevails over scorpions and snakes. One of Mafdet's numerous epithets is The Great Cat, which lends strength to her symbolic action as the destroyer of the enemy of the dead. She is known as Slayer of Serpents and Lady of the Castle of Life.
On the British Museum papyrus 10059, Mafdet is linked to healing:
It is this discharge (of Set) in its climax which has been siezed by
Mafdet in this room, and which provoked the cries of Isis (when) the
testicles of Seth had been cut (in this room). Do not be chained up, go
out, discharge of Horus […] O Mafdet, open your jaws against this
enemy, a dead man, a dead woman!
Mafdet's mythological presence is in the "house of life" and in her
capacity as healer, she removes and destroys the "discharge" from the
person who is ill. A cake is then fashioned in the form of the affected
body part, placed inside the fat part of a portion of meat and fed to a
female cat. By consuming the meat containing the enemy's fat, she
symbolically kills it.
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Article researched and written by Sementawy Horemheb and Teinne Horemheb
