Page "Hapi (Nile god)" Paragraph 5

Although male and wearing the false beard, Hapi was pictured with pendulous breasts and a large belly, as representations of the fertility of the Nile.

He also was usually given blue or green skin, representing water.

Other attributes varied, depending upon the region of Egypt in which the depictions exist.

In Lower Egypt, he was adorned with papyrus plants and attended by frogs, present in the region, and symbols of it.

Whereas in Upper Egypt, it was the lotus and crocodiles which were more present in the Nile, thus these were the symbols of the region, and those associated with Hapi there.

Hapi often was pictured carrying offerings of food or pouring water from an amphora, but also, very rarely, was depicted as a hippopotamus.

During the Nineteenth dynasty Hapi is often depicted as a pair of figures, each holding and tying together the long stem of two plants representing Upper and Lower Egypt, symbolically binding the two halves of the country around a hieroglyph meaning " union ".

This symbolic representation was often carved at the base of seated statues of the pharaoh.