What is the uraeus, the cobra on the pharaoh’s crown?

Worn on the king’s brow, it is the goddess Wadjet spitting fire at his enemies: the sign of royal and divine authority.

What the sign shows: A rearing cobra with its hood spread.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Massey takes the cobras for mother-powers: two of them as the two mothers, seven as the first powers of nature.
Where you see it today: The cobra on the brow of Tutankhamun’s gold mask.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 28 times across the book. Book V, p. 272: “Seven powers born of the earth”; Book X, p. 646: “Two serpents, darkness and life”; Book IV, p. 199: “Backbone, square and seven souls”.
Signs that look like it: Serpent of darkness, Vulture and Crocodile. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “These Two Mothers were imaged by the double Uræus-crown of Maternity.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book II, p. 68)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Uraeus. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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