SEBEK

also spelled Sobek, Greek Suchos in ancient Egyptian religion, crocodile god whose chief sanctuary in Fayyum province included a live sacred crocodile, Petsuchos (Greek: He Who Belongs to Suchos), in whom the god was believed to be incarnate. Sebek may have been an early fertility god or associated with death and burial before becoming a major deity and patron of kings in the Middle Kingdom (c. 1850c. 1630 BC). He was merged with Re, the sun-god, to constitute a crocodile form of that God known as Sebek-Re. The worship of Sebek continued into Ptolemaic and Roman times in the Fayyum, at Kawm Umbu (Kom Ombo) in Upper Egypt, and elsewhere. Cemeteries of mummified crocodiles have been found in the Fayyum and at Kawm Umbu.