Meretseger's name means "She Who Loves Silence", in reference to the silence of the desert cemetery area she kept or, according to another interpretation, "Beloved of Him Who Makes Silence ". Meretseger was the patron of the artisans and workers of the village of Deir el-Medina, who built and decorated the great royal and noble tombs. Desecrations of rich royal burials were already in progress from the Old Kingdom of Egypt, sometimes by the workers themselves: the genesis of Meretseger was the spontaneous need to identify a guardiangoddess, both dangerous and merciful, of the tombs of sovereigns and aristocrats. Her cult, also present in Esna, reached its peak during the 18th Dynasty. A royal wife of the Middle Kingdom pharaohSenusret III was called Meretseger; she was the first to bear the title Great Royal Wife and the first whose name was written in a cartouche: however, as there are no contemporary sources relating to the Great Royal Wife Meretseger, this homonym of the goddess is most likely a creation of the New Kingdom. The goddess Meretseger was worshiped by the workers' guild, who feared her wrath very much. Being a local deity, only small rock temples were dedicated to her and some stelae with prayers and poignant requests for forgiveness, as well as various right at the foot of the hill dedicated to her — which was her embodiment too. She was sometimes associated with Hathor: even the latter was considered a protector of the graves in her funerary aspects of "Lady Of The West" and "Lady Of The Necropolis" who opened the gates of the underworld. Her close association with the Valley of the Kings prevented her becoming anything more than a local deity, and when the valley ceased being in use, so she also ceased being worshipped., the sharp peak overlooking the Valley of the Kings.|240x240px
Meretseger's hill
Meretseger was especially associated with the hill now called el Qurn "The Horn", a natural peak, the highest point in the Theban Hills, which dramatically overlooks the Valley of the Kings. It has an almost pyramidal shape when viewed from the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, and therefore some Egyptologistsbelieve it may have been the reason for choosing the location as a royal necropolis. El Qurn, also believed to be one of the entrances to the Duat, was sacred to both Meretseger and Hathor, but the former was considered its real personification. For this reason, two of Meretseger's many epithets were "Peak of the West" and "Lady Of The Peak". Many small stelae created by artisans and workers have been found as evidence of devotion to their favorite deities: in addition to Meretseger, Ptah, Amun, Hathor, Thoth and the deified pharaoh Amenhotep I, whose cult was very popular in Deir el-Medina.
Stela of Neferabu
It was believed that Meretseger punished the workers who committed a sacrilegepoisoning them with her bite. But she was also considered generous in forgiving those who repented to her and, in this case, would healed him from physical evil. This is the case of the draftsman Neferabu, who would have been cured of blindness after having begged Meretseger, as he himself was able to attest on a limestone stela dedicated to her:It is In the relations of the Egyptians with their divinities, the concepts of sin, repentance and forgiveness were very unusual; these characteristics of Meretseger's cult appear to be a unicum.
Rock shrine in Deir el-Medina
Meretseger's rock shrine in Deir el-Medina was formed by a series of caves placed in a semicircle, whose vaults however collapsed due to earthquakes, and on the outer walls still retains many steles, while a large number of fragments have been inventoried and distributed to various museums. It was also dedicated to the most revered Ptah, god of craftsmen and artisans. Overlying the temple there is a rock with the shape of a snake's head. The large amount of material found confirms that the temple was very popular and famous — locally.
Iconography
Meretseger was sometimes portrayed as a cobra-headed woman, though this iconography is rather rare: in this case she could hold the was-sceptre as well as having her head surmounted by a feather and being armed with two knives. More commonly, she was depicted as a woman-headed snake or scorpion, a cobra-headed sphinx, lion-headed cobra or three-headed cobra. On various steles, she wears a modius surmounted by the solar disk and by two feathers, or the hathoric crown. Her main artistic depictions are inside lavish royal tombs, for example:
the tomb of Userhat, "Scribe who Counts the Bread for Upper And Lower Egypt" under Pharaoh Amenhotep II, where she appears with Montu;
