For us Christians, God is God! A being of a higher order and busy with its own, "divine problems." But there were other gods: for example, gods, quite similar in their characters to people in Greek mythology. But what was the situation in Ancient Egypt, where most of the gods were beastheads? Were they perfect and imperturbable, unattainable for people, and were they the embodiment of eternity? Or, on the contrary, did they resemble people, even with their animal heads?
Not only did the gods of Egypt have animal heads, it was customary to depict them many times more people, which is why they look so impressive on the walls of ancient temples!
Alas, the latter turned out to be true. The mythical Egyptian gods were subject to common human weaknesses: vanity and greed, revenge and lies, even debauchery and drunkenness. In addition, they were far from always omnipotent, they themselves could be at the mercy of magic … And their desire for power and the struggle for it became legendary. Moreover, they even fought each other! That is, if you follow the ancient Egyptian religion literally, then it should be admitted that once upon a time in the Egyptian land … "divine wars" raged!
One of the most popular stories on this topic can be found in the Chester Beaty # 1 papyrus, first published by Alan Gardiner in 1931. The papyrus belongs to the times of the XX dynasty (1200-1085 BC), at the same time, apparently, the literary processing of the mythological cycle took place, which describes in detail the litigation of an uncle and nephew - two gods - Horus and Set. Note that this is a rather late period in the history of Egypt, the transformation of the images of the gods over the millennia has occurred significant, and if in the event side we can see the roots of ancient ideas, then the assessments of this or that character bear traces of the end of the Egyptian era of the New Kingdom.
Their battles can be viewed from the point of view of the reflection of historical events and the struggle of the tribes of Upper and Lower Egypt, from the point of view of the establishment of the patriarchal order of succession to the throne, the confrontation between Order and Chaos, and finally, as a reflection of the eternal battle of Good and Evil. But the latter interpretation seems to be the least probable, since none of the sides was, in the understanding of the ancient Egyptian, neither one nor the other.
Red land - Northern Egypt, White land - Southern Egypt. Two lands, two gods, two rivals … What were these gods who, according to the myth, fought for the right to receive the double crown of Tameri, as the ancient Egyptians called their country, for 80 years?
Ancient Egyptian gods (from left to right): Horus, Set, Thoth, Khnum, Hator, Sebek, Ra, Amon, Pta, Anubis, Osiris, Isis.
Red-maned Set, the embodiment of the ferocious heat of the desert, sandstorm, unbridled strength, the god of merciless war, throughout the history of Ancient Egypt was one of the gods, whose cult spread over a large territory. And let's just make a reservation that Set did not personify the eternal evil for the Egyptians, since this role was assigned to the serpent of chaos - Apopus - with whom the solar Ra fights every night. At the same time, Set, being a constant companion of Ra during his travels along the Duat, always helps him in this battle. Moreover, Set is the only god who alone is able to cope with Apophis, which, as we will see later, greatly complicated Horus receiving the inheritance of his father Osiris.
The emergence of the cult of Set in Egypt can be attributed to pre-dynastic times. His amulets and images belong to the most ancient times of the Badari culture, they are in Nagada, Su, but the center of Set's cult was Ombos. However, in Lower Egypt, a place was found for his temples - in the north-east of Egypt (in 14th nome), Set was worshiped in the lost Per-Ramses. One of the earliest known images of Set can be seen on the ritual mace of the king of Upper Egypt - Zara (better known as King Scorpio, 3100 BC). In ancient times, he was considered a brother and friend of the Elder Choir, Set personified night, and Choir - day. Both gods rendered friendly help to the dead; including - they installed and held a ladder along which the dead ascend from earth to heaven, helped to climb it.
During the Second Dynasty, the name and symbolism of Set appears on the steles of the pharaohs along with the name of the falcon Horus, which indicates the equality of these gods. And in later times, the combination of the names of Horus and Seth symbolized royal power, the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. In a number of images, Horus and Seth even merge into a two-headed deity - Heruifi.
In some periods of the 3rd millennium BC. Seth even somewhat pushed Horus as the patron saint of royal power. His name was included in a complex royal title ("priest of Set"), the kings of the XIX and XX dynasties even bore his name (Seti I, Seti II, Setnakht). "Napoleon of the ancient world" - Pharaoh Thutmose III called himself "the favorite of Set", and about Ramses the Great during the Battle of Kadesh it is said that he fought "like Set". Set was not only the god of war and anger, but also the patron saint of metals, acquiring the features of the god of the earth, the creator of Ptah; the hardest metal known at that time - iron - was called the "bone of Set".
The image of Set began to be endowed with negative features in the period after the Hyksos conquest, during the reign of the 15th-16th dynasties (1715 - c. 1554 BC). Alien conquerors worshiped Sutekh (Baal), whose functions and attributes were transferred to the Egyptian Set (that is why Set was later perceived as the patron saint of foreigners, even among his wives were alien goddesses).
Initially, the cult of the god Set (or Seth) was probably brought after in one of the ancient periods several waves of Semitic hordes who came from present-day Syria and the Arabian steppes invaded the territory of Lower Egypt, where the autochthonous population lived. They can be assumed to have been mixed with the northern hill tribes. These invaders worshiped Set, but their power did not extend beyond the Delta.
Later, other tribes appeared from Arabia through the lower end of the Red Sea (however, there is no consensus, perhaps they went through the desert or the Abyssinian mountains), who mastered the green valley of Upper Egypt. Skilled artisans, armed with copper weapons, they brought irrigation agriculture with them to Egypt, which made it possible to curb the flood of the Nile. Their first settlement was Edfu, but gradually they began to move north to the sacred Abydos and Tinis, subjugating scattered tribes, uniting them under their rule. These newcomers worshiped Horus.
The image of Horus also underwent significant changes during the history of Ancient Egypt, absorbing various beliefs. But, firstly, we note that there were several Mountains. The most famous image is the protector of the ancient kings, the embodiment of which was the falcon, which symbolized the spirit of the sun. The various deities were Horus the elder (son of Ra, brother of Osiris) and Horus the younger (son of Osiris and Isis). In Edfu, Horus had the attributes of not a solar, but a heavenly god. He was also the Horus of both horizons - Harakhti, who became one of the forms of Ra (and in this aspect the famous winged disc became his symbol). In the form of a winged disk, Horus fights victoriously with the enemies of Ra, feeds the water of the Nile with their blood, which Ra finds “pleasant” for himself, and the place of battle is called Behdet (“life is pleasant”), Horus becomes the conqueror of enemies - Gor Behdetsky. In this myth, Ra refers to Horus as his son, and Osiris is absent altogether. Perhaps Horus was once the embodiment of the solar spirit in those areas where Heliopolis theology later came with its powerful cult of Ra, so the image of Horus did not become independent, but merged into the cult of Ra.
As the "Golden Mountains", he was considered the god of dawn, in this guise he accepted the "ba" of the dead in the Hall of Two Truths of Osiris (in the afterlife courtroom). It is likely that initially his mother was not Isis, but the "heavenly cow" Hathor, and the sun, moon, stars (attributes of Horus) were the forms of Horus, which he accepted as her son. Obviously, the ancient tribal concepts were superimposed on each other, then on later concepts, and as a result, only one generalized name of the deity remained - Horus.
One of the kings-conquerors of Upper Egypt - Scorpio - with his army moved northward, expanding the boundaries of his kingdom. However, his victorious march was stopped in the area of then swampy Fayum. By this time, two kingdoms actually remained in Egypt - the Upper and the Lower, their collision was only a matter of time. And this time came when the king of Upper Egypt, Narmer (Horus Aha), the founder of the 1st dynasty, came to power. He put on the red (Lower Egypt) and white (Upper Egypt) crowns, uniting Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium BC. As you can see, the victory was won by the fans of Horus.
This is, in general terms, a possible historical background that has come down to us in the form of echoes in the myths about the struggle between Horus and Set. Note that already in the period of the Old Kingdom, the mythological outline was formed: Horus, the son of Osiris, defeated Set, took possession of his father's crown. Whereas in an independent tradition not related to the cycle about Osiris, Horus and Set appear as brothers claiming inheritance. The late transformation of the myth is probably associated with a change in the order of succession to the throne, when the right to transfer the throne not by seniority among brothers, but from father to son was asserted.
Ancient Egyptian papyrus depicting Anubis weighing the heart of the deceased. On one side of the scale is the heart, on the other the "feather of truth" of the goddess Maat.
The mythological plan of history refers to the times when the gods lived on earth … And they did not even live, but only tried to be realized. Already in the womb of his mother, the great goddess Nut, Set, as the myth tells, showed his envious disposition when he wanted to outstrip Osiris by birth in order to become the heir of their father Geb. But, despite his three-day efforts, even an unusual way of birth from a hole he had punched in the side of his mother, Set did not succeed, and by right of birthright Osiris became the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. All the subsequent time of his life Set was obsessed with the dream of seizing power, he enviously followed the successes of Osiris, who carried out a civilizing mission, organizing the life of mortals in Egypt and beyond. But, as is known from the myth, Set still found a way to be at the head of Egypt by tricking Osiris into a chest and then dismembering his body.
We omit the details of the ordeal of Osiris and Isis, the problematic and symbolism of this polysyllabic myth, the resurrection and departure of Osiris to the other world. But let's pay attention to the plot connected with the birth of Horus by Isis from the dead, but for a moment resurrected by the magic of Osiris, since it will be related to further events. When the goddess felt that a new life was beating in her, she turned with a passionate plea to the solar Ra for the protection of her son Horus, so that he could become the ruler and take revenge on the murderer of his father. And the king of the gods, even before his birth, promised his great-grandson Horus both the throne and power.
In real life, only the gods and pharaohs in Egypt could have such armor. A still from the film "Pharaoh".
Despite the promise of his great-grandfather, the king of the gods Ra, Horus had a difficult childhood. Largely thanks to the efforts of his uncle Seth, who was in no hurry to forget about the growing rival. Yet Horus grew up, and the eighty-year epic of the struggle for dominion over Egypt began. Many myths contain details of these bloody feuds, it is rather difficult to single out the sequence of plots, especially, as we understand, this is not a single cycle, but scraps of myths from different times and territories put together. But there are a number of the most famous stories.
Tutankhamun's chariot. On such chariots, according to the Egyptians, their gods also fought. Cairo Museum.
