Sobek

Sobek is the crocodile-god of the Nile and its marshes — a powerful, ambivalent deity embodying both the menace and the fertility of the river. Lord of the teeming life of the Faiyum, he was linked to the Nile's life-giving flood, to pharaonic might, and to protection against the dangers of the deep.

Sacred crocodiles were kept and pampered in his temples and mummified at death. Fearsome yet life-giving, Sobek expresses the Egyptian sense that the same waters that nourish can also devour — the dangerous power on which all life depends.