“Who is the sun, the earth and the water…the crocodile came like sun through the waves,” so daily recited the priests of the Fayum.
Though Sobek is exceptionally ‘watery’, in many ways he is closely associated with the element of earth. The crocodile lives in both water and on land, and his waters bring vitality to the soils, creating a fertile expanse.
Sobek’s role as a chthonic, agricultural deity is especially highlighted in his syncretization of Sobek-Geb (Kronos), particularly at Tebtynis in the Fayum. Geb is the primordial earth god, identified with the land itself and its generative power. Sobek-Geb unites the fertile verdence of the crocodile god with the earth’s agricultural abundance, the primeval creator god, the very life force of the land.
As god of the Nile, its flooding deposited rich, fertile silt onto the land, making it arable and tying water directly to the earth’s productivity, thus connecting him irrevocably to this process of renewal and fertility. His role in sustaining the earth’s fertility through water aligns him with the element of earth.
In the Middle Kingdom, he is ‘the one who opens his lakes as a young bull’, a terrestrial act tied to draining and cultivating the Fayum’s earth. “Lord of the River Banks” shows him as a guardian of the areas between land and water, going back into the marshes. He is at the earth’s margins, greening the fields with his element of water, bringing forth life and a profusion of plenty.
I am veering off a bit into UPG territory here, but I believe we can tie Sobek’s earth associations to that of chthonic functions – the regenerative power of the rich black soil and his association with the dead, protector of the deceased, ensuring their rebirth and sustenance. As a crocodile, he is a creature of both the water and the muddy banks, a bridge between the elemental forces of water and earth.
Dua Sobek 