Horus

   Son of Isis and Osiris, nephew of Nephthys and Set, grandson of Nut and Gea or Nut and Ra, father of the four Canopic gods: Amset, Duamutef, Hapi, and Qebhsneuf, and member of the Ennead. There are several manifestations of Horus, which tend to overlap, and the problem of disentangling them is not always easy, as Horus may well have been the name of a whole series of pre-dynastic rulers or priests. Another difficulty arises from the habit of the ancient Egyptians of combining two or three gods into dyadic or triune deities, which was frequently done with Amon, Horus, Osiris, Ptah, and Ra.

   The more important manifestations of Horus were:

   1. Horus the Elder, or Haroeris, a falcon-headed sky god, of pre-dynastic origin, who may possibly have been the high priest or ruler of a tribe having a falcon totem. The story of his fight, as god of the sun, god of day, god of light, god of life and of all good, with Set, as god of night, god of darkness, god of death and of all evil, was already current in the earliest dynastic periods. According to this, Horus had two eyes, the sun and the moon, of which Set managed to steal the sun, but was attacked by Horus, who inflicted a deadly wound in one of his thighs. Thoth, acting as mediator, made a treaty between them, allotting the day to Horus and the night to Set, and making them of equal length. Set, however, continued to persecute Horus, by cutting off pieces from his other eye, the moon, for a fortnight in each month, until there was none of it left. Thoth managed to frustrate him by making a new moon each month. This is an interesting earlier variant of the Osiris-Set conflict, and seems to relate to a dispute between two sun and sky gods, Set having been a sun and sky god originally, combined with memories of some cosmic event of great import.

   Horus the Elder was known by many names, including Aroueris and Heru-Sam-Taui.

   2. Horus of Edfu, or Horbehudet. A war god of Edfu, whose deeds were commemorated on the walls of the temple there.

   3. Horus on the Horizon, or Herhkhty. A manifestation of Ra, the sun god, on the horizon, i.e. the rising or setting sun.

   4. Horus the infant sun god, who was reborn every morning, and was also a manifestation of Ra.

   5. Horus the Child, or Harpakhrad. The son of Isis and Osiris, who is usually shown as being suckled by his mother. He was conceived when Osiris had been brought back from the dead by Isis, a point which later allowed Set to oppose his claim for the throne of Egypt.

   6. Horus the son of Osiris. He is sometimes shown as a man with a falcon’s head, wearing the double crown. He was the avenger of Osiris, and as such protagonist in the battles with Set, where we have another version of the story of the loss of an eye, only here Thoth brought it back and restored its sight by spitting on it. Horus then gave the eye to Osiris, who ate it and became filled with vital powers sufficient to enable him to take over the kingship of the dead.

   7. Harpokrates. A son of a Horus god, another form of Horus the Child.