THE CONTENDINGS OF HORUS AND SETH

 

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## MYSTERY SCHOOLS MAGAZINE

### THE CONTENDINGS OF HORUS AND SETH

**Posted by Rodrigo Veronezi Garcia on October 07, 2010**

The Essenes predicted that in the Final War among men, the Company of the Divine would ally itself with the Congregation of Mortals, and upon the battlefields, the "war cries of men and gods" would blend. Is this merely a bleak commentary on the bloody history of human warfare? Not at all. What the text *The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness* informs us is simply that the contentions among men will end exactly as they began: with gods and mortals fighting side by side.

As incredible as it may seem, a document exists that describes the very first war in which the gods involved mortals. It is an inscription on the walls of the great temple of Edfu, an ancient sacred city in Egypt dedicated to the god Horus. It was there, according to the traditions of Ancient Egypt, that Horus set up a foundry for "divine iron" and where he kept, in a special enclosure, the Winged Disk in which he traversed the skies. One of the texts states: "When the gates of the foundry open, the Disk rises."

The inscription at the temple of Edfu, remarkable for its geographical accuracy, begins with a date—unrelated to humanity's reckoning of time—and speaks of events that occurred long before the era of the pharaohs, when Egypt was ruled by the gods. In the year 363, His Majesty, Ra, the Holy, the Falcon of the Horizon, the Eternal Immortal, went to the land of Khenn. With him were his warriors, for the enemies had conspired against their lord in the district that to this day bears the name of Ua-Ua. Ra went there in his boat, along with his companions, and landed in the district of the Seat of the Throne of Horus, in the western part of that district, to the east of the House of Khennu, which since then came to be called the Royal Khennu.

Horus, the Winged Measurer, approached Ra's boat and said to his ancestor:

> "O, Falcon of the Horizon, I have seen the enemies conspiring against you, Lord, to seize the Luminous Crown."

> 

In a few words, the scribe managed to give us a general overview of the situation and set the scene for the war that was about to break out. We understand that the cause of the conflict was a conspiracy by certain "enemies" of the gods Ra and Horus, who intended to conquer the Luminous Crown, meaning, the sovereignty. It is obvious that this claim could only come from another god among the gods. To quell the conspiracy, Ra gathered his warriors and turned his boat to go to the place where Horus had established his headquarters.

Ra's "boat," as we know from many other texts, was a celestial vessel with which the god could travel to the most distant heavens. In this case, Ra used it to land in a place far from any kind of body of water, "in the western part" of the district of Da-Da, to the east of the "Seat of the Throne" of Horus. The latter, then, told him that the enemy was gathering its forces.

Then Ra, the Holy, the Falcon of the Horizon, said to Horus, the Winged Measurer:

> "Highest offspring of Ra, my chosen one, go quickly, exterminate the enemy you have sighted."

> 

Obeying the order, Horus departed in the Winged Disk to face the enemy. And so Horus, the Winged Measurer, flew to the horizon in the Winged Disk of Ra, and therefore, since that day, he is called the "Great God, Lord of the Heavens." Flying in the Winged Disk, Horus sighted the enemy forces and attacked them with a powerful weapon: from the heavens, from the Winged Disk, he saw the enemies and attacked them from the rear. From its front part, he launched a Storm upon them that they could neither see with their eyes nor hear with their ears. This brought death to everyone in a single instant; no one was saved.

His mission accomplished, Horus returned to Ra while still traveling in the Winged Disk, "which gleamed with many colors," and heard his victory being made official by Thoth, the god of magical arts:

Then Horus, the Winged Measurer, reappeared in the Winged Disk that gleamed with many colors; he returned to the boat of Ra, the Falcon of the Horizon. And Thoth said:

> "O, Lord of the Gods! The Winged Measurer has returned in the great Winged Disk, gleaming in many colors... ."

> 

For this reason, since that day, he is also known as "The Winged Measurer," and in his honor, the city of Hut came to be called Behutet.

### THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE DIVINE WAR

This first battle between Horus and the "enemies" took place in Upper Egypt. Heinrich Brugsch, the first to publish the text of this inscription, which occurred around 1870 (*Die Sage von der geflügelten Sonnenscheibe*), suggested that the "Land of Khenn" was Nubia and that Horus sighted the enemy in Syene, modern-day Aswan. More recent studies, such as *Egypt in Nubia* by Walter B. Emery, agree that Ta-Khenn was indeed Nubia and that Da-Da was the name of its northern part, the area between the first and second cataracts of the Nile. (The southern part of Nubia was called Kush.)

This identification is valid, since Behutet, the city granted to Horus as a prize for his victory, was Edfu itself, which through the ages was always dedicated to this god. Traditions assert that Horus established a foundry in Edfu where special weapons made of "divine iron" were forged. And it was also there that he trained an army of *mesniu*—the "metal people."

On the walls of the temple of that city, these warriors were depicted as men with shaved heads, wearing short tunics with wide collars, and carrying weapons in both hands. The drawing of an unidentified weapon, resembling a harpoon, was included in the hieroglyphic words for "divine iron" and "metal people." Still according to Egyptian traditions, the first men to receive metal weapons from the gods were the *mesniu*. And we shall see, as the text proceeds, that they were also the first mortals summoned to fight in the wars between the gods.

As the Aswan and Edfu area was now secured, and Horus had his warriors armed and trained, the gods felt ready to advance toward the north, penetrating into the interior of Egypt. The initial victories seem to have served to strengthen the alliance between these allies, for we learn that the Asiatic goddess Ishtar (the Egyptian text calls her by her Canaanite name, Astarte) had joined the group. Hovering in the sky, Horus shouted to Ra to take charge of scouting the terrain below him:

> "Advance, O, Ra! Look for the enemies who lie upon the earth!"

> 

Then Ra, the Holy, advanced; Astarte was with him. Both searched for the enemy on the ground, but all of them were hidden. Since he could not see the adversary, Ra had an idea:

> "Let us guide our vessel to the water, for the enemy is on land... ."

> 

Then they gave the waters the name "Traveled Waters," and thus they are known to this day. But while Ra possessed an amphibious vehicle, Horus had no way to enter the river. Therefore, the gods gave him a boat, to which they gave the name *Mak-A* ("The Great Protector"), and thus it is known to this day. The first battle among mortals followed:

The enemies also entered the water, disguising themselves as crocodiles and hippopotamuses. Horus, the Winged Measurer, arrived with his servants, who served as his warriors, each with his own name, carrying the Divine Iron and a chain in their hands, and they drove away the crocodiles and the hippopotamuses. They dragged 651 enemies to that place; they were killed near the city.

And Ra, the Falcon of the Horizon, said to Horus, the Winged Measurer:

> "Let this location be known as the place where your victory over the southern lands was established!"

> 

Having defeated the enemy in the sky, on land, and in the water, Horus's triumph seemed complete. Thoth felt it was the moment to celebrate:

> "O, gods of the sky, rejoice! O, gods of the earth, rejoice! The young Horus has brought peace by succeeding in performing extraordinary deeds in this campaign!"

> 

On that occasion, the Winged Disk was adopted as the emblem of the victorious Horus: since that day, the metal symbols of Horus have existed. It was he who crafted the Winged Disk as his emblem, placing it on the front part of Ra's boat. The goddess of the north and the goddess of the south, represented by two serpents, were placed one on each side. And Horus positioned himself in Ra's boat, behind the emblem, holding the Divine Iron and the chain in his hands.

### THE NORTHWARD ADVANCE AND THE DOMAINS OF SETH

Although Thoth had proclaimed Horus as the one who brought peace, it had not yet been achieved. Proceeding in their advance to the north, the company of the gods "sighted two gleams on a plain to the east of Thebes. Ra then said to Thoth: 'That is the enemy; let Horus eliminate him... .' And Horus wrought a great slaughter." Again, with the assistance of the army of men he had armed and trained, Horus managed to win the victory. And Thoth continued giving names to the locations where the successful battles had unfolded.

The first aerial combat of Horus had broken through the defenses that separated Egypt from Nubia at Syene (Aswan). The subsequent battles, both on land and in water, secured for the god the bend of the Nile that goes from Thebes to Dendera, a location where, in the future, temples and royal cities would proliferate. Now the path to the interior of Egypt lay open.

For several days, the gods continued advancing toward the north—Horus watching from above in the Winged Disk, and Ra and his companions sailing down the river, while the metal people guarded the flanks on land. There was then a series of combats, brief but fierce. The names of the locations—well established in the geography of Ancient Egypt—indicate that the attacking gods would reach the area of the lakes which, in Antiquity, stretched from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea (currently a few of them still remain).

Then the enemies distanced themselves from them, heading toward the north. They encamped in the district of the waters, before the Mediterranean Sea. Their hearts were filled with fear. But Horus, the Winged Measurer, pursued them in Ra's boat, carrying the Divine Iron in his hand. And his helpers, carrying weapons of wrought iron, were on all sides.

However, the attempt to surround and capture the enemies was not successful. For four days and four nights, Horus traversed the waters in pursuit of the enemies, but he could not sight any of them. Ra then advised him to climb back into the Winged Disk, and this time Horus sighted the fleeing enemies. Horus threw his Divine Lance at them and caused great confusion in their ranks, killing many of them. He also brought 142 prisoners, whom he placed in the front part of Ra's boat, where they were swiftly executed.

At this point, the inscription on the temple of Edfu ends and restarts on a new panel. In fact, a new chapter of the War of the Gods begins. The enemies who managed to escape "went to the North Lake, heading toward the Mediterranean, which they attempted to reach by sailing through the district of the waters. But the god filled their hearts with fear, and when they reached the middle of the waters, they fled to the waters that connect with the lakes of the district of Mer, with the purpose of joining the enemies who were in the lands of Set."

These verses offer us more than geographical information, for, for the first time, we find an identification of the "enemies." The arena of the conflict now was the cluster of lakes that, in Antiquity, separated Egypt proper from the Sinai Peninsula. To the east, beyond this water barrier, lay the domains of Set, adversary and murderer of Osiris, the father of Horus. Therefore, Set was the enemy upon whose forces Horus had been advancing, coming from the south.

With the flight of the enemies, there was a lull in the conflict, and during this period, Ra reached the region that separated Egypt from the country of Set, and Horus brought his metal people to the front line. But the adversary also had time to regroup his forces and crossed back over the water barrier, entering Egypt. A great battle then followed, in which 381 enemies were captured and executed. (The texts make no reference to the number of casualties on Horus's side).

Horus, in the heat of the pursuit, crossed the waters and entered the domains of Set. The latter, furious at the invasion, challenged him to personal combat. The fights between the two gods, which took place both on land and in the air, were the subject of countless legends, and I will speak of them further on.

At this point, however, it is interesting to analyze the aspect highlighted by E. A. Wallis Budge in *The Gods of the Egyptians*: in the first involvement of men in the wars of the gods, what brought victory to Horus was the fact that he had armed mortals with the Divine Iron.

> "It is quite clear that he owed his success, above all, to the superiority of the weapons his men carried and the material of which they were made."

> 

Therefore, according to the Egyptian texts, it was in this war of the gods that man learned to raise the sword against his fellow man. When the combats ended, Ra expressed his satisfaction with the deeds of "Horus's metal people" and decreed that from then on those men would dwell in sanctuaries and be served with libations and offerings, because they had killed the enemies of the god Horus.

Thus, these *mesniu* established themselves in the two capitals of Horus: Edfu, in Upper Egypt, and This (Tanis, in Greek; Zoan, in the Bible), in Lower Egypt. With the passing of time, they abandoned their purely military role and gained the title of *Shamsu-Hor* ("Attendants of Horus"), coming to serve as advisors and emissaries of the gods.

### THE HISTORICITY OF THE ACCOUNTS AND THE DIVINE DYNASTIES

According to scholars, the inscription on the walls of the temple of Edfu is a copy of a much older text that was well known to scribes. However, no one has yet been able to determine when the original account was written. Experts have concluded that the accuracy of the geographical and other data indicates (in the words of E. A. Wallis Budge) "that we are not dealing with purely mythological events; it is almost certain that the triumphant advance attributed to Hor-Behutet (Horus of Edfu) is based on the deeds of some adventurous invader who established himself in Edfu in very primitive times."

As happens with all Egyptian inscriptions, this one also begins with a date: "In the year 363... ." These dates always indicate the year of the reign of the pharaoh involved in the described event. Thus, each ruler had his first year of reign, the second, and so on. However, the text in question deals with divine matters, and not with the activities of kings; therefore, it relates events that took place in "year 363" of the reign of a certain god, or gods, taking us back to primitive times when Egypt was ruled by gods and not by men. The traditions of Ancient Egypt never left any doubt that there really was an era like that.

During his long journey through Egypt, the Greek historian Herodotus (5th century B.C.) received detailed information about pharaonic kingdoms and dynasties.

> "The priests told me that Menes was the first king of Egypt; he built the dike that protects Memphis from the floods of the Nile."

> 

After making the diversion of the river, the pharaoh began to build the city on the lands reclaimed from the waters. Herodotus proceeds:

> "In addition to these works, according to the priests, he built the temple of Vulcan, which is inside the city, an immense building, worthy of being mentioned."

> 

The historian adds:

> "Next, the priests went to fetch a papyrus and read to me the names of 330 monarchs who occupied the throne after Menes. Among them, eighteen were Ethiopian kings, and there was one queen, who was a native; all the others were men and Egyptians."

> 

Herodotus's informants also showed them rows of statues representing pharaohs and told them various details about these rulers, stating that they possessed divine ancestors. "The beings represented by these images were very far from being divine," Herodotus doubted, but wrote:

> "In earlier times, the situation was quite different. Egypt was ruled by gods who inhabited the Earth along with men, and one of them always exercised supremacy over the rest. The last of these gods was Horus, son of Osiris, whom the Greeks called Apollo. Horus deposed Typhon and then reigned over Egypt."

> 

In his book *Against Apion*, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, from the 1st century, cited the writings of an Egyptian priest named Manetho as one of his sources on the History of Egypt. These texts were never found, but any doubt that might have existed about the reality of such a priest vanished when scholars discovered that his work served as the basis for several Greek authors.

Currently, it is believed that Manetho (the name, in hieroglyphs, means "Gift of Thoth") was indeed the high priest and great scholar who, around 270 B.C., compiled the history of Egypt in several volumes, by order of King Ptolemy Philadelphus. The original manuscript was in the Library of Alexandria when, along with numerous other documents of incalculable value, it was consumed by fire during the blaze caused by Muslim conquerors in the year 642.

Manetho was the first historian to divide the Egyptian rulers into dynasties, a practice that continues to this day. His King List—names, duration of reigns, order of succession, and other pertinent information—was preserved mainly through the works of Julius Africanus (3rd century) and Eusebius of Caesarea (4th century). These and other versions based on the Egyptian historian bring as a common point that the first ruler of the first dynasty was King Mên (Menes, in Greek)—the same one Herodotus cited, based on his own investigations in Egypt. This fact was confirmed by more modern discoveries, such as the Abydos King List, in which Pharaoh Seti I, accompanied by his son, Ramesses II, listed the names of 75 of his predecessors. The first of them is Mena.

If Herodotus was correct in citing the dynasties of the Egyptian pharaohs, would he have been right also regarding the existence of a "preceding era," when Egypt was ruled by gods? Manetho corroborates Herodotus's claims regarding this question. According to him, the dynasties of the pharaohs were preceded by four others: two of gods, one of demigods, and another of transition. First, seven great gods reigned over Egypt, making a total of 12,300 years:

| Ruling God | Duration of Reign |

|---|---|

| **Ptah** | 9,000 years |

| **Ra** | 1,000 years |

| **Shu** | 700 years |

| **Geb** | 500 years |

| **Osiris** | 450 years |

| **Set** | 350 years |

| **Horus** | 300 years |

## EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY: HORUS

### THE CELESTIAL GOD AND THE ROYALTY

Horus, the mythical sovereign of Egypt, unfolds his divine falcon wings over the heads of the pharaohs, who were not merely protected ones, but, in reality, the very incarnation of the god of the sky. For was he not the patron god of the pharaonic monarchy, of Egypt united under a single pharaoh, ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt? Indeed, since the blossoming of the historical era, the pharaoh proclaimed that within this god shone his *ka* (vital power), in the eager desire to legitimize his sovereignty, it being therefore not unusual that, around 3000 B.C., the first of the five names of the royal titulary was exactly “the name of Horus.”

In the Egyptian pantheon, several are the deities that manifest themselves in the form of a falcon. Horus, possessing a complex and intricate personality, emerges as the most famous of all of them. But who was this god, upon whose wings the creative power of the pharaohs was reinvented? First of all, Horus represents a celestial god, ruler of the heavens and the stars sown within them, whose identity is the product of a long evolution, in the course of which Horus assimilates the personalities of multiple divinities.

Originally, Horus was a local god of Sam-Behet (Tell el-Balahun) in the Delta, Lower Egypt. His name, *Hor*, can be translated as “The Elevated One,” “The Distant One,” or “The Faraway One.” However, the course of the years facilitated the extension of his cult, so that in the blink of an eye the god became the patron of several provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt, even ending up usurping the identity and power of local deities, such as, for example, Sopdu (in eastern areas of the Delta) and Khentekthai (in the Central Delta). Finally, he integrates into the cosmogonia of Heliopolis as the son of Isis and Osiris, encompassing disparate divinities whose connection goes back to this kinship.

The Horus of the Osirian myth emerges as a man with the head of a falcon who, like his father, wears the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. It is likewise as a member of this triad that Horus enjoys the absolute peak of his popularity, being venerated in all places where worship was offered to his parents.

### A PROLONGED CHILDHOOD IN THE SWAMPS

The Legend of Osiris reveals to us that, after the celestial conception of Horus—a blessing of magic that granted Isis the privilege of fusing with her deceased husband in divine nuptials—the goddess, fearing reprisals from Seth, evokes the protection of Re-Atum, in the hope of safeguarding the life that was blossoming within her. Receptive to Isis's prayers, the solar god watched over her until the long-awaited birth. When this occurred, the voice of Horus then intoxicated the heavens:

> “I am Horus, the great falcon. My place is far from that of Seth, the enemy of my father Osiris. I have reached the paths of eternity and light. I take flight thanks to my own impulse. No god can achieve what I have achieved. Soon I will depart for war against the enemy of my father Osiris, I will trample him under my sandals with the name of Furious... Because I am Horus, whose place is far from gods and men. I am Horus, the son of Isis.”

> 

Fearing that Seth would embrace the resolution to attempt against the life of her newborn son, Isis then took refuge on the floating island of Khemis, in the marshes near Buto, a circumstance that granted Horus the epithet of *Hor-heri-uadj*, that is, “Horus who is upon his papyrus plant.” Although the inhospitable nature of this region offered her the much-desired safety, since Seth would never venture into such a deserted region, it simultaneously compromised their subsistence, given the blatant scarcity of food characteristic of that place. To ensure her survival and that of her son, Isis finds herself forced to beg; therefore, every morning, she hides Horus among the papyruses and wanders through the fields, disguised as a beggar, in the anxious desire to obtain the much-needed food.

One night, upon returning to Horus, she is faced with a truly terrifying scene: her son lay lifeless in the place where she had left him. Desperate, Isis tries to restore the breath of life to him, but the child was too weak to feed on his mother's milk. Without hesitating, the goddess begs for the assistance of the villagers, who nevertheless reveal themselves powerless to help her.

When the suffering almost made her cross the threshold of madness, Isis glimpsed before her a woman popular for her gifts of magic, who promptly examined her son, proclaiming Seth uninvolved in the evil that tormented him. In reality, Horus (or Harpocrates, *Horpakhered*—“Horus the child/infant”) had simply been the victim of the sting of a scorpion or a snake. Anguished, Isis then verified the truth of her words, deciding immediately to evoke the goddesses Nephthys and Serket (the scorpion-goddess), who promptly rushed to the scene of the tragedy, advising her to beg Re to suspend his usual journey until Horus recovered fully.

Compassionate toward a mother's pleas, the solar god thus ordered Thot to save the child. When he finally stood before Horus and Isis, Thot then declared:

> “Fear nothing, Isis! I come to you, armed with the vital breath that will cure the child. Courage, Horus! He who dwells in the solar disk protects you, and the protection you enjoy is eternal. Venom, I command you to come out! Re, the supreme god, will make you disappear. His bark has stopped and will only resume its course when the patient is cured. The wells will dry up, the crops will die, men will be deprived of bread while Horus has not recovered his strength for the bliss of his mother Isis. Courage, Horus. The venom is dead, behold it defeated.”

> 

After having banished, with his divine magic, the lethal venom that was about to deliver Horus to death, the sublime sorcerer then requested the inhabitants of Khemis to watch over the child whenever his mother had a need to absent herself. Many other spells befell Horus in the course of his childhood (intestinal ailments, unexplained fevers, mutilations), only to be defeated immediately afterward by the power of the magic held by the sublime deities of the Egyptian pantheon.

### THE JUDICIAL CONFLICT AND THE WILD CONFRONTATIONS

At the threshold of maturity, Horus, protected until then by his mother, Isis, took the resolution to avenge the murder of his father, claiming his legitimate right to the throne of Egypt, usurped by Seth. Upon summoning the tribunal of the gods, presided over by Ra, Horus asserted his desire for his uncle to leave, definitively, the regency of the country, finding, as he finalized his arguments, the support of Thoth, god of wisdom, and of Shu, god of the air.

However, Ra contested them vehemently, alleging that the devastating strength of Seth perhaps granted him better aptitudes to rule, since only he had been able to master chaos, in the form of the serpent Apophis, which invaded, during the night, the bark of the sun-god, with the aim of extinguishing, for all eternity, the light of day. Once a verbal quarrel was finalized, which increasingly separated them from a consensus, a long and fierce dispute for power then began, pitting Horus against his uncle in savage confrontations.

After a fruitless series of encounters almost collapsed in barbarism, Seth suggested that he himself and his adversary take the form of hippopotamuses, with the aim of verifying which of the two would resist longer, remaining submerged underwater. After some time had elapsed, Isis was unable to restrain her apprehension and created a harpoon, which she launched into the place where both had disappeared. However, upon striking Seth, he appealed to the bonds of fraternity that united them, coercing Isis to heal him immediately afterward. Her intervention infuriated Horus, who emerged from the waters in order to decapitate his mother and, by that very act, carry her away with him to the desert mountains.

Upon learning of such a heinous act, Ra, angered, vociferated that Horus should be found and punished severely. Promptly, Seth volunteered to capture him. His searches were quickly crowned with success, since in the blink of an eye he came upon Horus, who lay asleep near an oasis. Dominated by his cruel temperament, Seth gouged out both of Horus's eyes to bury them somewhere, unaware that these would blossom into lotus buds.

After such an ignoble crime, Seth reunited with Ra, declaring that he had not been successful in his search, whereby Horus was then considered dead. However, the goddess Hathor found the young god, miraculously healing his eyes by rubbing them with the milk of a gazelle. Another version paints a new picture for us, in which Seth steals only the left eye of Horus, representative of the moon. However, in that narrative, the falcon-god, possessing within his eyes the Sun and the moon, is likewise healed.

In both stories, the Eye of Horus, always represented in the singular, becomes more powerful, at the threshold of perfection, due to the healing process to which it was subjected. For this reason, the Eye of Horus or Eye of Wadjet emerges in Egyptian mythology as a symbol of the victory of good against evil, which took the form of a protective amulet. Egyptian belief likewise states that, in memory of this fierce dispute, the moon appears constantly fragmented, just as it was found before Horus was healed.

Certain versions of this legend dwell on another episode of this bewildering conflict, in which Seth conspires again against the physical integrity of Horus, through an apparently innocent invitation to visit him at his abode. The narrative reveals that, the dinner being culminated, Seth seeks to dishonor Horus, who, although forewarned, is unable to prevent a drop of his rival's semen from falling into his hands. Desperate, the god then goes to meet his mother in order to beg her to help him. Sharing the horror that flooded Horus, Isis severed her son's hands to cast them immediately into the water, where, thanks to the supreme magic of the goddess, they disappear into the mud.

However, this situation becomes unsustainable for Horus, who then takes the resolution to resort to the help of the Universal Lord, whose extreme goodness leads him to understand the suffering of the falcon-god and, consequently, to order the crocodile-god Sobek to rescue the lost hands. Although such diligence was crowned with success, Horus is faced with yet another unexpected event: his hands had been blessed with a curious autonomy, incarnating two of the sons of the falcon-god.

Summoned again, Sobek is tasked with the job of capturing the hands that insisted on disappearing and bringing them before the Universal Lord, who, to avoid the chaos of another quarrel, takes the resolution to duplicate them. The first pair is offered to the city of Nekhen in the form of a relic, while the second is restored to Horus.

### THE FINAL RESOLUTION AND HORUS'S TRIUMPH

This long and truly savage conflict was finally resolved when Thoth persuaded Ra to direct a laudatory letter to Osiris, delivering him an incontestable and complete title of royalty, which forced him to leave his kingdom and confront his murderer. Thus, the two sovereign gods evoked their rival powers and launched themselves into an ardent dispute for the throne of Egypt.

After a fruitless encounter, Ra then proposed that both reveal what they had to offer to the land, so that the gods could evaluate their aptitudes to govern. Without hesitating, Osiris fed the gods with wheat and barley, while Seth limited himself to executing a demonstration of strength. When he won the support of Ra, Osiris then persuaded the remaining gods of the powers inherent to his position, by reminding them that everyone traversed the western horizon, reaching his kingdom at the culmination of their paths.

In this way, the gods admitted that, indeed, it should be Horus to occupy the throne of Egypt, as the heir to his father. Consequently, and after about eighty years of altercations and fierce encounters, the long-coveted inheritance was finally granted to the falcon-god, which earned him the title of *Hor-paneb-taui* or *Horsamtaui/Horsomtus*, that is, “Horus, Lord of the Two Lands.” As compensation, Ra granted Seth a place in the sky, where he could enjoy his position as the god of storms and thunder, which allowed him to torment the others.

This myth seems to synthesize and represent the political antagonisms experienced in the pre-dynastic era, with Horus emerging as the tutelary deity of Lower Egypt and Seth, his opponent, as the protector of Upper Egypt, in a clear dispute for political supremacy in the Egyptian territory. This encounter likewise possesses a certain analogy with the paradox raised by the combat of darkness with light, of day with night, in short, of all antagonistic entities that embody the typical struggle of good against evil.

The mythology regarding this god differs depending on the regions and time periods. However, as a general rule, Horus appears as the husband of Hathor, goddess of love, who offered him two sons: Ihy, god of music, and Horsamtui, “Unifier of the Two Lands.”

Nevertheless, and as mentioned previously, Horus was immortalized through disparate representations, appearing at times in a solar form, as the son of Atum-Re or Geb and Nut, or presented by the Osirian legend as the fruit of the love between Osiris and Isis, thus embracing different mythological currents that fuse, renew, and complete themselves in his identity. It is one of the many vectors in which the solar cult and the Osirian cult, the most relevant of Ancient Egypt, complement each other in an oasis of Sun, a homeland of legends of light, in whose golden waters floats all the magic of one of the most enigmatic civilizations of Antiquity.

### DETAILS AND EGYPTIAN VOCABULARY

 * The cult of Horus was centered in the city of Edfu, where, particularly in the Ptolemaic period, it enjoyed a resounding popularity;

 * The cult of the falcon-god dispersed into countless sub-cults, which created controversial legends and numerous versions of the popular god, such as the one named Ra-Harakhty;

 * The stelas (stones with images) of Horus were considered curative for snakebites and scorpion stings, common in these regions, since they represented the god in his childhood defeating the crocodiles and the scorpions and strangling the snakes. Sipping the water that any devotee had left over his head meant obtaining the protection that Isis provided to her son. On these stelas, the god Bes frequently appeared, sticking his tongue out at evil spirits. The spells cover the outer sides of the stelas. We find a powerful protection in them, as highlighted by the famous Metternich Stela:

> “Rise, venom, come and fall to the ground. Horus speaks to you, annihilates you, crushes you; you do not rise, you fall, you are weak, you are not strong; you are blind, you do not see; your head falls downward and rises no more, for I am Horus, the great Magician.”

> 

### BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brugsch, Heinrich. *Die Sage von der geflügelten Sonnenscheibe nach den altägyptischen Denkmälern der Tempel von Edfu, Philae, Esneh, Denderah, Karnak*. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1870.

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