Who is Horus?

On the west bank of the Nile in southern Egypt, the enormous stone ruins of Edfu Temple stand in the desert on the sand. Two larger-than-life stone falcons guard the entrance. As you pass between them and venture into the shade of ancient stone halls, gigantic falcon-headed figures peer down on you from high above. These figures all represent Horus, one of the main gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. But who is Horus? What role did he play in ancient Egyptian mythology and religious practice? And why were falcons so important to the ancient Egyptians in the first place? There were many falcon gods in ancient Egypt, all of them connected in some way or another, but by far the most important was the god Horus. Horus is one of the oldest gods known from ancient Egyptian mythology. He was the tenth member of the Ennead, or the group of nine in Egyptology. The Ennead refers to the original nine gods and goddesses who were born at the creation of the world. As the tenth member of a supposed group of nine, Horus stands out a bit because he doesn’t seem to belong, but as the son of Isis and Osiris, two prominent members in the group, he was an honored firstborn among the most powerful gods in the Egyptian pantheon. In this video, we’ll consider the various identities and myths associated with Horus in order to better understand why he was so important to ancient Egyptian religion, culture, and politics.

The name Horus comes by Latin from the Greek Horos, which in turn comes from the ancient Egyptian language. For example, it’s attested in the Coptic language as Hoer. Now, Coptic is a later version of the Egyptian language that was written after the hieroglyphic script fell out of use. In the hieroglyphic script, Horus’s name is written with this sign, which is read Heru, at least in egyptological pronunciation. Egyptologists use a modern artificial system for vocalizing the written hieroglyphs to discuss hieroglyphic words. I’ll continue to refer to Horus by his latinized name, since this is how we best know him today. Horus’s Egyptian name, Hoer or Heru, is closely related to several common Egyptian words, such as this one, which means one who was above, and this one, which means far away. Both are kind of pronounced like Harry. These related words tell us something about the nature of Horus. He floated high above the world and traveled far, like a falcon. And indeed, Horus originated in prehistoric times as a falcon god of the sun and sky. In fact, while we may think of Rey or Ra as the iconic sun god of ancient Egypt, Rey had many associated gods and animal avatars, one of which was the falcon of Horus. The later god Rey-Harakhty, which means sun Horus of the horizon, shows how these different gods could be combined or take on different guises.

Representations of a local falcon god, either Horus himself or an early version of the god who later became known as Horus, date to the pre-dynastic period. This is the time leading up to the first pharaohs and the unification of the land along the Nile valley into a single kingdom. At the city of Nekken, later known to the Greeks as Falcon City, archaeologists discovered the foundations of one of the oldest Egyptian temples ever found, and it’s pretty darn old. So far, I’ve been showing a lot of footage from my visit to the Temple of Edfu, but this dates to the Ptolemaic period. This earlier temple, located not too far away from Edfu just west of the Nile, is 3,000 years older. This temple was not made of stone like the more famous temples of later eras, and it didn’t even have the typical temple shape that you might know from examples at Edfu and Karnak. The scant archaeological evidence can’t tell us everything we’d like to know about this incredibly ancient temple, but later depictions of shrines and divine symbols like these hieroglyphs, along with similar architectural elements built into later stone temples, give us a rough idea of how it might have looked. The first Horus temple was probably a large shrine made out of wood and reed matting, with flagpoles and small carved figures standing in for the falcon god.

We know that Horus was an important god even at this early date, both from the remains of his temple and from depictions of falcons that occur among the artifacts of the very first pharaohs. The original conquest and unification of the settlements along the Nile valley into a single pharaonic kingdom began in upper Egypt, probably near Nekken and Edfu. And from the beginning, these upper Egyptian rulers adopted Horus with an attribute that stuck with him for thousands of years to come, a symbol of strength and political control. He became the god of kingship. What you’re looking at is the famous Narmer Palette, which is believed to be a depiction of the unification of upper and lower Egypt by the first pharaoh Narmer. Up here, you can see a falcon using a hooked tool for woodworking, shaped kind of like a modern crowbar called an adze. Here, you can see the falcon using the tool to pry up the nose of a human-headed representation of the Nile Delta, symbolizing Narmer’s dominion over lower Egypt. In this iconic image, Horus is in the form of a falcon acting for the pharaoh Narmer, and in turn, Narmer becomes the earthly incarnation of the god Horus. So, as the embodiment of kingship, depictions of Horus associated him with the pharaoh from the very beginning of recorded Egyptian history.

Narmer’s successors continued to use images of Horus to represent their rule over the newly created kingdom. During the early dynastic period, the very beginning of the pharaonic state, pharaohs inscribed their name into stone for posterity inside an iconic depiction of a fortress with a falcon perched on top. Egyptologists call this type of royal name a serekh. In some examples, the figure of Horus is even larger than the king’s name in hieroglyphs. The association between pharaoh and the god continued into the Old Kingdom. In a sculpture of Khafra, builder of the Great Sphinx and the middle of the three Giza pyramids, a small falcon perches just behind the head of the king. From the front, we only see the usual depiction of a serious and powerful ruler. But if we go around the sculpture, a small falcon appears with his wings wrapped around the king’s head, as if Horus is piloting him like some sort of vehicle. Horus was literally the power behind the throne. The notion that Horus guided the pharaoh and acted as his representative on earth continued into the Middle Kingdom. For example, in the story of Sinuhe, a popular epic poem written in Middle Egyptian, the reigning pharaoh dies suddenly and his son must rush off to the capital to take his throne.

However, the king’s death is described euphemistically. Instead, the story says the falcon flew off with his supporters. Euphemisms like this work because anyone hearing this story would immediately understand the implications. The pharaoh is Horus. Horus doesn’t die. He simply flies away so that a new incarnation can take his place. So from this evidence, we see that during the pharaonic period, Horus was most strongly associated with the living pharaoh, and in this position, he’s best understood as the god of kingship. That’s to say, Horus represented the ideal monarchical ruler. In the ideal monarchy, Horus guided the king and the king was the living incarnation of Horus on earth. Horus’s power also extended to the royal court and the elite of the capital. For example, Horus is referred to as the god of the elite in the Pyramid Texts, which are collections of magic spells and religious hymns carved on the inside of some pyramids. His power and protection covered not only the pharaoh himself, but also the pharaoh’s supporters and the elite of the royal palace. In other words, Horus was the divine embodiment of a stable and effective royal government.

According to Egyptian mythology, Horus obtained this position by inheriting it from his father, the former king Osiris. But this path to rule was not smooth. Many Egyptian texts alluded to a battle for control between Horus and his uncle Seth. Seth was the brother of Osiris and the god of the desert and storms. Seth wasn’t evil per se; Egyptian mythological figures are complex and they really can’t be assigned simple labels like good and evil. But he was known for his cunning and trickery, much like Loki in Norse mythology. Seth was both powerful and clever, and he had a knack for cooking up plans that no one else could expect. According to one story that dates back centuries but is fully preserved only by the Greek writer Plutarch in the first century CE, Seth tricked Osiris and murdered him in order to steal his throne. Naturally, Seth also tried to eliminate Horus as Osiris’s heir and his potential rival. But Horus’s mother Isis hid him in the Nile Delta swamps and protected him with her powerful magic. In a tale much like the movie The Lion King, with Osiris as Mufasa, Seth as Scar, and Horus as Simba, Horus returned from a long period of exile, battled his uncle, and took possession of his father’s kingdom.

In the battle for control of the Egyptian throne, Seth plucked out Horus’s eye, but the goddess of magic, Isis, restored it for him with the help of the god Thoth, god of writing, mathematics, and wisdom. As a result, Horus’s eye was said to be healed or whole, and in fact, the Egyptian word for healed uses this sign, pronounced wedget by modern Egyptologists. This is one of the most recognizable symbols from ancient Egypt. It combines the power of Horus, the magic of Isis, and the wisdom of Thoth into a single package. The shape of this symbol ultimately derives from the natural pattern on the face of a lanner falcon, the animal most strongly associated with Horus. Lanner falcons are common birds of prey in most of Africa and even parts of Europe, where they make their living by hunting smaller birds in flight. They would have been very visible as top predators to the ancient Egyptians. Their speed and agility made them natural symbols of intelligence and power. Archaeologists have also found the remains of falcons in animal mummies, which indicates that they were also raised in captivity. This probably explains how Egyptian artists were able to depict them with such striking realism.

The tale of the battle between Horus and Seth was one of the most popular myths in ancient Egypt. Not only is it a compelling story in its own right, it also serves to reinforce political norms that were crucial to the smooth functioning of the Egyptian state. The death of a pharaoh was a time of political instability. Ambitious nobles who sat just below the former king in the court hierarchy might be tempted to exploit the sudden power vacuum and seize the throne for themselves. And many of these people would be directly related to the former king. The king’s closest relatives would have the best claims to legitimacy and therefore the greatest opportunity to seize power. The story of Horus’s triumph over his uncle reinforced the belief that it’s the son who is best suited to inherit his father’s kingdom. Nobles at the royal court would have grown up hearing this story, seeing how Seth’s ambitions backfired and how Horus inevitably won out with the aid of his divine supporters. Horus and Seth are both very powerful gods, but whereas Seth’s is the power of intelligence and skill, Horus is the power of birthright and popular support. In the politically charged and, let’s face it, highly conservative environment of the pharaonic court, Horus’s sort of power was seen as safe and legitimate.

Over the course of Egyptian history, pharaohs associated themselves and their reigns with both Horus and Seth at different times, but it’s Horus who appeared most often in royal iconography. Artistic and textual representations of Horus make it obvious that the pharaoh and the court viewed him as their personal protector. Royal prayers, especially those preserved in the Pyramid Texts, repeatedly call upon Horus to aid the pharaoh in his journey through the afterlife so that he might survive death and rescue his court from annihilation. Now, later in Egyptian history, the forms of Horus continue to expand and combine with other gods. Falcon gods like Nemti and Montu, who were associated with the sun god Rey and warfare respectively, were probably as old as Horus himself, but they were not as prominent or important, and their attributes eventually became associated with Horus anyway. While expanding his associations with other gods, Horus also expanded his own roles. The god Harpocrates, whose name means Horus the child, rose in prominence in the Greco-Roman period of the ancient Mediterranean, where Greeks and romans reinterpreted his role as a child god of new beginnings and secret magic. But he never lost his association with kingship, as we see with the Ptolemies.

Now, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in the 330s BCE, but after he died, Egypt fell under control of one of his generals, Ptolemy. Egypt thus functionally became a Hellenistic state, but the non-Egyptian Ptolemies continued to use Horus’s association with rulership to legitimize their own rule over the native Egyptian population. Ptolemaic rulers built upon earlier sites for the worship of Horus, such as this temple of Edfu. The bunches of falcons and falcon-headed gods carved into the walls attest to the ongoing importance of Horus for the Ptolemaic court, even thousands of years after the great pharaohs of old. So how did people worship Horus? What did the cult of Horus look like? Well, Egyptian religion was highly secretive by nature, and modern historians don’t always know that much about the rituals that took place in the inner sanctum. We know that special priests washed and dressed figures of the god in the naos, or the innermost shrine, but we can only infer that indirectly from the evidence. One particular ritual that stands out is the boat procession. On certain festival days, the figure of the god was removed from the naos, placed in a shrine on a wooden boat, and paraded through the streets. This festival is depicted on scenes inscribed on the walls at the temple of Edfu, and a replica of the boat stands in the naos chamber today. By building this temple and doing this ritual, the Ptolemies were carrying out a tradition dating back thousands of years to at least the Middle Kingdom.

Looking at all of this royal attention, you might start believing that Horus was only a god of the wealthy and powerful. But in fact, Horus was a multifaceted god whose power could in theory belong to anyone. Numerous artifacts from private burials reveal that Horus was worshiped by people at all levels of Egyptian society. Funerary inscriptions commissioned by ordinary Egyptians frequently depict them worshiping Horus or Horus-related gods, such as Rey-Harakhty. Non-royal tombs were decorated with large and vividly illustrated falcons coupled with the wedget, symbolizing the healing and protective aspects of Horus. The magic of Isis that protected the infant Horus in the delta marshes while his murderous uncle Seth searched for him could be extended to protect ordinary people from everyday dangers, such as venomous snakes and scorpions. So Horus was accessible to all levels of society. But Horus is best understood as the god of pharaonic kingship, a role which he acquired early, even before the formation of the first Egyptian kingdom, and held all the way into the common era. However, Horus had many forms and representations. As Rey-Harakhty, he brought sunlight and life to the world. As Harpocrates, he held magical secrets. His magical eye held the power of healing, and his high position and farsightedness guided kings and commoners alike. He was worshiped and loved throughout ancient Egypt as the just son who avenged his father and the god who floats above it all.