The War of Horus and Set Read online

  THE WAR OF HORUS AND SET

  AUTHOR: DAVID MCINTEE

  ILLUSTRATOR: MARK STACEY

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  THE GODS AND THEIR REALM

  The Creation of the World and the Gods

  The Gods Cast of Gods

  THE JEALOUS BROTHER

  Before He Was Bad Osiris and Family

  The Birth of Horus Set the Zombie Slayer

  THE VENGEFUL NEPHEW

  The First Mummy Horus vs Set The Final Conflict

  HISTORY AND WARFARE

  I’ve Heard it Both Ways Casting Against Type

  Conquest of Cambyses Weapons and Tactics of Egypt

  ENDURING LEGACY

  Egyptian Mythology: Purpose and Relevance

  Then and Now

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INTRODUCTION

  Ancient Egypt is one of the most fascinating and popular subjects of study in the world, both in terms of its archaeology and its mythology. It has interested people for thousands of years. Even when the Ancient Greeks ruled Egypt as pharaohs, there was already an Ancient Egypt to look back on. The Pyramids were ancient mysteries even to these pharaohs, and the origins of the old stories and myths had long since been forgotten.

  The Romans were similarly intrigued, as were the Arabs, the Crusaders, and the scientists and historians of Napoleon’s army. Even today, television programmes about Ancient Egypt are immensely popular on the various documentary channels, perhaps only beaten by programmes on animals and UFOs.

  Egypt’s mythology, though sometimes forgotten and misunderstood, has always come back into popularity in some form. In particular, the story of Set, Horus, and the overthrow and resurrection of Osiris has survived for four and a half thousand years. It is a story that was not only among the most important for the Ancient Egyptians, but is one that still influences tales today. There are many reasons for this popularity and longevity, not least of which is that the rivalry between siblings is one of the most basic stories there is. Both in life and in fiction, everyone knows that brothers are as often rivals as they are allies, and so a story with that theme – such as that of Set and Horus – is truly universal. An audience does not need to be Egyptian to understand and empathize with it, and that makes it timeless.

  This book retells this particular timeless story in modern words. It explains how the story developed over time, and also delves into the real-world events of Egyptian history that inspired and affected the myth.

  A modern interpretation of Horus. (Artwork by Yigit Koroglu)

  THE GODS AND THEIR REALM

  The Creation of the World and the Gods

  The feud between Set and Horus began long before Horus was born, when Set and Osiris were the first brothers born among the gods. Like many pantheons of gods around the world, the Egyptian gods started off as a single family, with the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the original creator, Atum.

  At the very beginning, there was a void filled with only the primal waters of chaos, and this was called Nu. The only solid thing in the world – in fact the only thing in reality at all – was a pyramid-shaped rock called the Benben, and when the Egyptians later built actual pyramids, they topped them with carved Benben stones to represent this one, and sheathed those capstones in gold.

  Then a very strange thing happened. The first god was sitting on the Benben stone. He didn’t come from anywhere; he simply was there at that moment. The name given to him by the Egyptians, Atum, derives from the word meaning ‘to complete’, and so his name refers to the fact that he completed himself. This was only the beginning, however, and he had more creation to finish.

  Atum finds that there’s a serpent – Apep – in the chaos surrounding the world. (Universal Images Group / DeAgostini / Alamy)

  Of course, Atum only had himself with which to create anything. The earliest version of the story is in the Pyramid Texts. These are spells carved and painted into the walls of pyramids’ burial chambers from around the 5th Dynasty – 2400-2300 BC – which were intended to both protect and guide the pharaoh in his journey through the afterlife, as well as to persuade and threaten the gods into being favourable. Two hundred and twenty-eight spells were recorded, at the end of the 5th Dynasty, in the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara. According to these, Atum sneezed out Shu, the god of the air, and spat out Tefnut, the goddess of water. In later, and ruder, versions, he created this first pair of siblings by means of a quite different bodily fluid.

  Pyramid Texts? The clue’s in the name: texts carved or painted inside pyramids. In this case, the burial chamber of Unas, last pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty, inside his pyramid at Saqqara. There are 228 spells carved into this lot. (The Art Archive / Alamy)

  The first thing that Shu and Tefnut did, like all good children, was leave home. They went off to explore the universe into which they had been born. Atum was distraught at the loss of his children, and so created fire, to light the way that led to them. Eventually, the message of fire found them, and they returned, making Atum so happy that he burst into tears. These tears fell upon the rock, where they became the first men.

  Shu and Tefnut, meanwhile, being the first male and female couple, had done what came naturally, and mated. As a result, Tefnut soon gave birth to a son and a daughter. The son, Geb, became the earth, and the daughter, Nut, became the heavens, in the form of the night sky. In turn, Geb and Nut became parents themselves, to two sons and two daughters. The sons were none other than Osiris and Set, and the daughters were Isis and Nephthys.

  Both of Geb’s sons would go on to be very famous in Egyptian mythology, and to have a lasting legacy, but the eldest son, Osiris, would have influence all the way to the present day. Geb’s eldest son is still known today as Osiris, but there were some who called him by a different name at first. Some called him Horus, the same name that would be given to his own son, and insisted that he was therefore Horus the Elder, who only became Osiris when he went into the underworld to rule over it.

  The Gods

  Ancient Egypt had somewhere in the region of two thousand gods, and probably a lot more, if local town and village deities are included. Many of these gods, however, were actually just different names – and different regional attributes – for the same god or goddess. For example, the original unique self-created creator god was Atum, who first appeared on the Benben stone out of the chaotic waters of the void, and who created his children Shu and Tefnut from within himself alone. However, the original unique self-created creator god was also called Amun, who created his children with his third wife, Mut. She was his wife after Wosret and Amunet, who was the female side of himself! Mut, in turn, was also the original unique self-created creator goddess.

  This is a big problem when trying to understand Egyptian mythology. So many of the gods share attributes and origin stories, so many have varying origin stories, and so many of the gods and goddesses are combined – like colours or flavours – into new forms in different periods. For example, Ra, the king of the gods, often has his name appended to both Atum and Amun, both of whom were the original king of the gods before being merged back with Ra later on.

  In the case of Atum-Ra, he then fathered Shu and Tefnut upon Iusaaset, rather than on his own as the story was originally told. Iusaaset seems to have been his shadow, who split from Atum-Ra in a form of parthenogenesis in order to become the grandmother of the gods.

  Ra in his solar barque, Mandjet. (The Print Collector / Alamy)

  The pharaoh makes an offering to Osiris, from the tomb of the pharaoh Horemheb. (Robert Harding Picture Library Ltd / Alamy)

  The reason for all of this is actually quite simple, even if the result is not. It is because Egypt wa
s originally two kingdoms, and in fact was known to the Egyptians as The Two Lands. Upper and Lower Egypt’s mythological developments were somewhat different, albeit always mixed together. So, while Atum founded the nine gods called the Ennead according to the religion based at Heliopolis in Lower Egypt, Amun and his wives founded a council of eight gods – called the Ogdoad – according to the religion that was based in the Upper Egyptian city of Thebes.

  From this point onwards, both kingdoms shared many of the same gods, such as Ra, Thoth, Sekhmet and so on, as well as having local gods for local people. The gods could be larger than life, literally: the only surviving description says that on earth they were six cubits tall – about 4.3 metres, or over 15 feet – while Ra was a man one million cubits tall! In most artworks the gods are shown as man-size or slightly larger, however. Some sources also describe the gods as having golden skin in their full majesty, though other sources give the gods individual colours to represent attributes (for example, black for the fertility of the Nile Delta’s soil, or green for rebirth and resurrection), and most are shown in paintings with normal Egyptian skin.

  Before too long, the great family spread and expanded, and there were many more gods throughout Egypt. So, just who are the gods involved in this myth, and what sort of deities were they?

  Cast of Gods

  Ra

  Ra was the Egyptian sun god, with the head of a falcon, the centre of whose worship was at Heliopolis. He was born from an egg (or a lotus flower) on the same Benben mound as Atum, and, like Atum, created man from his tears. While Atum is generally not mentioned in mythology after the creation story, Ra shares so many of his attributes – as creator, as a sun god, as leader of the council of the gods – that it is quite likely that they are in fact meant to be the same god. From the 2nd to the 4th dynasties, the sun god began to be called Ra, and sometime around the 5th Dynasty, about 2400 BC, the name of Atum was replaced by that of Ra, and sometimes combined with it as Atum-Ra.

  Ra was therefore the chief god, and it was his responsibility to take the sun across the sky in his boat. It was also his responsibility to make sure the sun survived its journey through the Duat at night, and rose again in the morning. Ra was therefore an important god, well-loved and worshipped ever more spectacularly. He also had a dark side, though, and more than once decided to wipe out humanity. Ra had a paranoid streak, which sometimes made him fear that humanity was plotting to overthrow him. When he was in these moods, he would send his daughters, Hathor and Sekhmet, to wipe out the human race. Luckily Hathor was a fertility goddess, and more interested in breeding humans than killing them, so she would brew red beer to make Sekhmet the lioness sleepy when she drank it in the belief that it was blood, and dance for Ra until his mood calmed.

  Ra’s name was also sometimes combined with that of Horus, but not the Horus who would fight Set. In order to cast Ra as supreme ruler of both the daylight world of life and the underworld of night and death, the title Ra-Horakhty (Horus of the Two Horizons) linked him with Osiris, ruler of the underworld, who was also called Horus the Elder.

  Osiris

  Osiris was the eldest son of Geb and Nut, and was said to be the original pharaoh. He was the god of the Nile and of resurrection. After his death, he became the king of the underworld and merciful judge of the dead. He is usually shown as a bandaged mummy, with either green skin (as the colour of resurrection and rebirth) or black skin (as the god of the fertile soil of the Nile Delta).

  Despite quickly becoming the central figure of Egyptian funerary texts, and so important to the whole culture of death, rebirth, and apotheosis of the pharaoh, the earliest mention of Osiris is from the 5th Dynasty, when tomb paintings suddenly began to show the deceased pharaoh making offerings to him instead of to Anubis, as had previously been the case. Prior to this, Anubis had been depicted as god of the dead, and a god called Ptah-Seker was the god of resurrection.

  In this painting from the era of Rameses IV, Atum-Ra in the form of the Great Cat of Heliopolis kills Apep himself under a sacred tree – yet another version of this myth, sidelining Set. (Everett Collection Historical / Alamy)

  Despite being generally portrayed as a wise pharaoh and a wise and merciful judge, as well as a builder of civilization, Osiris is also suggested in many shorter folk tales to have been snappy, ill-tempered and acid-tongued.

  Set

  The younger brother of Osiris was trouble from the day he was born, having burst forth from his mother in a sort of DIY Caesarean operation. Set was one of the first gods to be seen in Egyptian art and myth, being depicted on what is called the Scorpion King mace, a carved stone mace-head dating from pre-Dynastic Egypt. His original centre of worship was at Nubt, near Naqada, in Upper Egypt. (There was also a city called Nubt in Lower Egypt, later renamed Kom Ombo, which was the cult centre for a different god, Sobek.)

  Set was thought to be covered with red hair, and people with red hair were said in Ancient Egypt to be favoured by him. In return, such people often chose him as a favourite god. For example, the Ramesside family, the pharaohs Rameses I and II chief among them, were redheads, and they were a dynasty that promoted Set. Perhaps the higher proportion of redheads in the area of Avaris is the reason that place became Lower Egypt’s centre of Set’s cult in the first place. Or perhaps redheads gravitated there because it was a Set cultural centre.

  Set was the god of foreigners, and also the god of the desert. In this latter role he was worshipped by those who wished to be kept safe from the harsh conditions of the desert, and was expected to protect them from sandstorms and help them find water. As god of foreigners, he was both the one to influence them and also the one to defend against them. He also had foreign wives as well as his sister Nephthys. The Semitic and Phoenician goddesses Anat and Astarte were said to be among his consorts.

  He was also the master of storms and of warfare, and was popularly worshipped by soldiers and generals. Set is supposed to be the villain of the myth, but things were never that simple.

  Horus

  The son of Osiris and Isis, Horus represented the living pharaoh, who was considered during his lifetime to be the embodiment of Horus, just as he was considered to become Osiris after death. Horus is actually one of the older gods, having begun as a falcon god (his name derives from the word for falcon) in pre-Dynastic times.

  Throughout most of the history of Ancient Egypt, Horus was a sun god like Ra. Sometimes he was considered to be Ra, or blended with him, but he most notably and specifically was associated with the midday sun, because it was from the midday sun that falcons dived upon their prey.

  Although Horus was the god of Lower Egypt, the earliest record of his name is in Nekhen in Upper Egypt. Like his rival, Set, Horus was also considered a god of war, and also a god of hunting.

  Isis

  Isis was the eldest daughter of Geb and Nut, and Queen of Heaven. She appeared as a woman with a model throne for a headdress, but could also transform herself into a bird, and this is reflected in the wings that unfolded from her arms. She was the epitome of wife and mother, and also a goddess of slaves and artists. Most importantly she was a healer by magical means.

  As the widow of Osiris, her tears were said to be what caused the Nile to flood. As the mother of Horus, she was by extension the mother of the pharaoh, whoever the pharaoh happened to be. In fact, there are still tribes in sub-Saharan Africa who call a throne the ‘mother of the king’, which may be a surviving relic of the ancients’ view of Isis. Isis was also perhaps the only goddess who was constantly worshipped in all regions of The Two Kingdoms, all the way through its history.

  Just because she was a healer, mother, and called upon as protector of the underdog, does not mean Isis did not have a dark side. She was very ambitious, and would stop at nothing to make sure her son got every possible prize and advantage over everyone else.

  Thoth

  Thoth was the god of wisdom and writing, who also often acted as arbitrator among the gods. He often had the head of a
baboon, and sometimes that of an ibis, and was originally the god of the moon. He was a close ally of Osiris, and is often shown assisting him, or even standing in for him, during the judgement of the dead. When judging the dead, he was shown with the ibis head, and when acting as an arbitrator he had the baboon head. He was also the god who disseminated the knowledge of the sciences and the arts of magic.

  A figurine of Anubis, Osiris’s predecessor, then assistant, in judging the dead. (Author’s Collection)

  Thoth was very much a god of diplomacy and balance – his wife was Ma’at, the very personification of order and truth. Whether this attribution came about because his worship was originally based at Khmun, exactly on the borderline between the Two Kingdoms, or whether his temple was based there because of his position as arbitrator, is unknown. In either case, Thoth’s impartiality could easily be questioned, due to his alliance with Osiris and his clear delight in trying to embarrass Set.

  Nephthys

  The younger sister of Isis, Nephthys was the original priestess – her name means ‘Lady of the Hall’, referring to the temple – and the goddess of lamentation. In this role she, along with her sister, protected the pharaoh for his mummification and journey into the Duat. Nephthys, unlike most of the gods and goddesses, is not usually represented by an animal appearance, although, like Isis, she could turn herself into a bird, usually a kite.