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H q
in hieroglyphs

To the Egyptians, the frog was a symbol of life and fertility, since millions of them were born after the annual inundation of the Nile, which brought fertility to the otherwise barren lands. Consequently, in Egyptian mythology, there began to be a frog-goddess, who represented fertility, referred to by Egyptologists as Heqet (also Heqat, Hekit, Heket etc., more rarely Hegit, Heget etc.),[1] written with the determinative frog.[2]

Name and depiction[edit]

Her name was probably pronounced more like *Ḥaqā́tat in Middle Egyptian, hence her later Greek counterpart Ἑκάτη (see Hecate).[3] Heqet was usually depicted as a frog, or a woman with a frog's head, or more rarely as a frog on the end of a phallus to explicitly indicate her association with fertility. She was often referred to as the wife of Khnum.[4]

Worship of Heqet[edit]

The god Khnum, accompanied by Heqet, moulds Ihy in a relief from the mammisi (birth temple) at Dendera Temple complex, Dendara, Egypt


Later, as a fertility goddess, associated explicitly with the last stages of the flooding of the Nile, and so with the germination of corn, she became associated with the final stages of childbirth. This association, which appears to have arisen during the Middle Kingdom, gained her the title She who hastens the birth.[6] Some claim that—even though no ancient Egyptian term for "midwife" is known for certain—midwives often called themselves the Servants of Heqet, and that her priestesses were trained in midwifery.[7] Women often wore amulets of her during childbirth, which depicted Heqet as a frog, sitting in a lotus.

Heqet was considered the wife of Khnum, who formed the bodies of new children on his potter's wheel.[8]



  1. ^ Armour, op.cit., p.116
  2. ^ Erman, op.cit. vol. 3, 169.10
  3. ^ McKechnie, Paul, and Philippe Guillaume. Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World. Leiden: Brill, 2008. page 133.
  4. ^ Cotterell, op.cit., p.213
  5. ^ Wilkinson, Toby, p. 286
  6. ^ cf. the role of Heqet in the story of The Birth of the Royal Children from the Westcar Papyrus. Lichtheim, op.cit. p.220
  7. ^ Franklin, op.cit., p.86
  9. ^ Shier, Louise A. (1972). "The Frog on Lamps from Karanis". Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies (Brill). p. 357. 


  • Robert A. Armour, Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt, American Univ. in CairoPress 2001
  • Arthur Cotterell, The Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Myths & Legends, Macmillan 1989
  • Rosalind Franklin, Baby Lore: Superstitions and Old Wives Tales from the World Over Related to Pregnancy, Birth and Babycare, Diggory Press 2005
  • M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol.1, 1973