Serket

The tale of Serket

Serket (also Selket) is the Egyptian scorpion goddess. She is shown as a woman with a scorpion on her head, or as a scorpion with a woman's head. Her full name, Serket-hetyt, means "she who tightens the throat", for the scorpion's venom makes breathing hard. But the same name can also be read as "she who lets the throat breathe", because Serket can cure the poison as well as cause it.

In a land full of scorpions and snakes, she was one of the most important protectors. Healers and magicians called "followers of Serket" treated scorpion stings and snakebites with her spells. Anyone stung prayed to her for help, and anyone who wanted someone else stung, the game says, prayed to her too.

The seven scorpions of Isis

After Osiris was murdered, Isis fled from Set into the marshes of the Nile delta with her baby Horus. Serket sent seven scorpions to guard her on the way. Three walked in front, two beside her and two behind, and they whispered to her to keep away from people and roads.

One evening Isis came to a town and asked for shelter at the house of a rich woman, who saw the scorpions and slammed the door in her face. A poor peasant girl let Isis into her humble hut instead. The seven scorpions were furious at the insult. They put all their venom together into the sting of one, Tefen, who crept under the rich woman's door and stung her little son. Then a fire broke out in her house.

The rich woman ran through the streets in despair, and nobody would help her, until Isis heard her. The child is innocent, Isis said. She laid her hands on the boy and spoke the name of each scorpion in turn, commanding its venom to leave him, and he lived. The rich woman, ashamed, gave her treasure to the poor girl who had shown kindness.

Guardian of the dead

Serket also guards the dead. She is one of the four goddesses who protect the coffin and the canopic jars that hold the organs of a mummy: Isis, Nephthys, Neith and Serket. In the tomb of Tutankhamun, a beautiful golden statue of Serket, her arms spread wide, stood guard over the shrine of his canopic chest.

Serket in Battle of Myths

Serket is a cost 2 Egyptian hunter and assassin. Her ability, Scorpion Sting, is a small wound that keeps working: the sting deals damage, then its venom burns for magic damage every second and wounds the enemy so it heals less. As her quote says, her sting is slow, and she has never once needed it to be fast. With every Egyptian hero she shares the Sun Cycle: by day the Egyptians strike faster, and at nightfall they are shielded.

Did you know?

• One of the earliest known kings of Egypt, from before the First Dynasty, is called King Scorpion.
• Her golden statue from Tutankhamun's tomb is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.