Horus and the City of Pe

Author: Traditional

Time Period: 5000 BCE–2500 BCE

Country or Culture: Egypt

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Horus and Set (Seth) have been at war with one another for many years, and although Horus has the gods of the Egyptian pantheon supporting him, their battle has still not come to an end. Horus is the god of the sky and the patron deity of Lower Egypt, the fertile northern valley. Horus has the head of a falcon and is the son of the great gods Isis and Osiris. Set, in contrast, is the god of chaos, who comes from the vast desert of Upper Egypt. His head resembles an aardvark or a mule, and years ago, he slew Osiris, his brother.

Set is a wily god, capable of taking the form of any animal or human and of deceiving even other gods with his illusions. Horus, however, is an honest and just god, and so he does not rely on tricks as Set does. Instead, Horus has deep blue eyes that reflect the future back to anyone who gazes into them. One day, Set hears that the sun god Ra (Re) has planned to consult with Horus and gaze into his eyes. Set knows that this will be an ideal time to attack Horus, so he takes the form of a fierce black pig, larger than any normal pig and with tusks of incredible sharpness.

Ra arrives and gazes into the magical eyes of Horus, seeing reflected back to him gorgeous green waters with the light of the sun sparkling on their surface. He only stares at this pleasing image for a moment, however, before Set passes by in his pig form, startling Ra. With both gods distracted, Set blasts fire into Horus’s open, vulnerable eye, causing Horus to cry out in pain.

Horus immediately realizes that the pig must have been Set, but by the time he recovers from the burn, Set has disappeared. Enraged, Ra curses the pig, saying that swine will from now on be an abomination to the god Horus. For this reason, pigs will be sacrificed to Horus every full moon, and those who raise swine will be forbidden from entering any temples and their children forbidden from marrying any person who worships the gods. Wishing also to compensate Horus for his injury, Ra gives him the city of Pe. This so pleases Horus that plants and flowers across the world begin to blossom and thunderclouds fade away.

SIGNIFICANCE

This minor fray between Horus and Set is one in a long history of conflicts between the two gods in Egyptian mythology. Horus is one of the oldest gods in ancient Egypt, and his personifications and histories evolve to such a great degree that many scholars consider the Horus of different eras to in fact be distinct (although directly related) deities. Set is likewise an ancient god, the brother and murderer of the god Osiris.

As Set and Horus battle through Egyptian mythology, their clashes are used to give meaning to a number of historical facts and natural occurrences. On a basic level, for instance, this narrative includes the maiming of Horus, whose left eye is permanently damaged by Set. Horus was often portrayed in falcon form, and the passing of the sun and the moon across the sky were explained as his two eyes shining as he traversed the earth. The fact that the moon is always dimmer than the sun is explained by this story, as the magical eye is no longer fully able to radiate its light after the injury.

Just as important, however, this myth deepens the long history of conflict and eventual unification between Upper and Lower Egypt (Upper Egypt being further south, as the Nile River runs south to north). Much of the political history, like much of the mythology, remains unclear after so many centuries; however, it seems likely that Horus was a sky god worshipped by people outside of the Nile region, whereas Set was a god worshipped by people indigenous to the area. As the worshippers of Horus invaded and conquered the Nile delta, Horus was incorporated into the greater Egyptian pantheon and Set’s mythology was revised to make him an evil, hated deity. When Ra gives the city of Pe over to Horus, then, one of the oldest and most powerful Egyptian gods is passing power on to another. Because Pe was an important cultural hub, this endorsement by Ra both legitimizes the Horus cult and shames the religious and political power associated with Set. It was later believed that the predynastic leaders who ruled Pe prior to the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt lived on as bird-headed, godlike beings. Called the Souls of Pe, their eternal role was to greet new pharaohs and offer protection over the region, strongly linking the mythology of Horus to the political stability of the delta. Despite the haziness around historical information, then, the story of Set maiming Horus provides a significant amount of depth to the understanding of the cultures that vied for power and influence in ancient Egypt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bunson, Margaret. Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. New York: Infobase, 2002. Print.

Cicarma, Elena Andra. “The Diversity and the Theriomorphism of Horus as the Exponent of Pharaonic Royalty: His Local Nomatic and Syncretic Henotheistic Hypostases.” Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies 5.8 (2013): 78–84. Print.

David, Rosalie. The Ancient Egyptians: Beliefs and Practices. Portland: Sussex Academic, 1988. Print.

Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978. Print.

Murray, M. A. “The Black Pig.” Legends of Ancient Egypt. Mineola: Dover, 2000. 56–58. Print.