Vulture goddess with cult centre at Nekhab (El Kab) depicted as a vulture with outspread wings, as a woman wearing a vulture cap, or as a cobra. Originally a goddess of local importance only, she became a protector deity of Upper Egypt after the merging of the Nekheb and Nekhen territories. After the unification of Egypt she was one of the two ladies, protecting the pharaoh, who wore a vulture and a uraeus or two uraei on a headband. The fifth dynasty pharaoh Userkaf recorded:
Nekhbet in the sanctuary of the South: 10 offerings of bread and beer every day.
Buto in Pernu: 10 offerings of bread and beer every day.
Palermo Stone
J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part One, § 156
Thutmose IV, setting out on a campaign against Nubia, likened himself to the war god Montu, served and protected by Nekhbet
... Nekbet, the White, of El Kab, she fastened the adornments of my majesty, her two hands were behind [me], she bound for me the Nine Bows together ...
Palermo Stone
J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, § 828
Nekhbet was was the Lady of the Great House (perwer - pr wr), i.e. the Upper Egyptian "state" temple. She was also a moon-goddess, the hale Eye of Horus in the Pyramid Texts (#900). Amenemhet called her mistress of heaven
At first just the protector of the new-born pharaoh, she was popularly venerated as a goddess of birth since the New Kingdom.
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