Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Geb, the god of who personified the earth in Egyptian mythology, the Egyptian counterpart of Gaia, the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology.

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Geb was one of the most important and one of the most powerful gods in Egyptian mythology. Geb's iconography almost always has him depicted in human form, his green skin symbolising all the plants that grew along his surface. The fields of grain that stretched across the land were said to sprout from his ribs, and in general, the vegetation that carpeted the earth was said to grow on his back. Because of this, he was deeply connected to fertility - that of the earth, of course, but also of livestock. He was thought to be the ultimate source of all freshwater and so maintained a close friendship with Hapy the god of Nile inundation, cyclical flooding keeping the banks of the Nile extraordinarily fertile. As the personification of the earth, Geb was a chthonic deity. It was thought that he swallowed up the dead and that he was the master of all the snakes of the earth. By turn, he could be life giving or life taking, for he could sustain life through the bounty of the earth or could bring death through various disastrous phenomena, such as earthquakes. He often presided over divine disputes, as was the case when Horus and Set vied against each other for the throne. And once the kingship finally passed from the gods to humanity, the pharaohs were said to sit on the throne of Geb.

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