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The name Sobek means crocodile. He was a crocodile god much favored by the kings of the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties. Many of the rulers of this period chose to bear names such as Sobek-Hotep, which means “Sobek is merciful”. His main place of worship was in the Nome of Faiyum of which he was the patron deity. His temple there had a holy lake where a sacred crocodile named Pet-Sobek “he who belongs to Sobek” was kept. He was also worshiped at Kom Ombo, where he replaced Seth in a triad of gods, becoming the husband of Hathor and the father of Khonsu. He had associations with the god Horus and a further identification with Ra led to a form of the crocodile with the solar disk on his head. He was usually represented as either a crocodile or a man with a crocodile’s head. Sobek was understandably a god of the water, the Nile river issued from his sweat. He “made the herbage green” and therefore took on a somewhat Osiris-like character.
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