Seth (deity)

Symbols: Seth-animal; black boar; hippopotamus; crocodile; ass; pig; red ox

Country: Egypt

Mother: Nut

Father: Geb

Siblings: Osiris; Horus the Elder; Isis; Nephthys

Seth, the son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, was one of ancient Egypt’s earliest gods, and commanded both reverence and fear. He was the god of storms, associated with chaos, confusion, earthquakes, mischief, the desert, and the foreign lands beyond it. He was considered very strong, yet unpredictable and dangerous. Seth was married to his sister Nephthys.

Impatient to be born, Seth tore himself from his mother’s womb prematurely. His skin was white and his hair red. Those people with red hair, animals with red fur, the scorpion, wild ass, bull, antelope, hippopotamus, boar, crocodile, ox, and many desert animals were considered Seth’s creatures. He was often represented as a beast, with a long, downturned snout, square ears, a dog-like body, and a forked tail. This beast is known as the Seth-animal. At times Seth was depicted as a man with the head of this beast.

A complicated god, Seth was a mischievous being, who in early Egyptian mythology represented both good and evil. He was the wild boar who ate the moon every month, hiding its light. But he was also a powerful ally of the sun god Ra, helping him ward off the serpent of chaos Apep every night while travelling with him in his celestial solar boat through the underworld. However, over the centuries Seth became more associated with evil, and by the tenth century BCE he was vilified for assassinating his brother Osiris. Egyptians came to see him as the eternal opposite to the spirit of good personified by his brother Osiris.

In Mythology

Seth was most famously associated with the myth of the death of his brother Osiris, a death that played a huge role in Egyptian mythology. As the earth god, Geb was the divine king of Egypt. Geb’s first-born, Osiris, was his heir and became king of Egypt after him. Osiris was believed to be the bringer of agriculture and advanced arts and crafts to Egypt, while Seth was considered the god of the red desert and was associated with the dangers of that infertile, hostile region.

Seth soon became jealous of his brother and plotted to kill him and take his throne. He invited Osiris to a banquet, where he produced a beautifully made chest and said that whoever fitted inside it perfectly would get to keep it. Osiris decided to try and lay down inside the chest. Immediately Seth’s accomplices nailed down the lid and trapped Osiris inside. They threw the chest into the Nile, where the current carried it to the sea, finally washing up at Byblos on the Phoenician coast. With his brother dead, Seth claimed the throne for himself.

When Isis, Osiris’s sister-consort, heard of his assassination, she was grief-stricken and set out in search of the chest. She found it in Byblos and brought it to Egypt and hid it in the marshes.

However, Seth chanced upon his brother’s body and in order to destroy it forever cut it into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over Egypt. Isis again went out in search of her husband and gathered all the pieces. Then, together with her sister Nephthys and other deities, she joined the fragments, restored Osiris, and gave him eternal life. Osiris posthumously fathered a son, named Horus, with Isis and she raised the boy in secret.

Horus was keen to avenge his father’s death and started a war to claim his throne. During the course of the battle Horus castrated his uncle, while Seth plucked out one of his nephew’s eyes. Seth’s weapon of choice was a huge mace, called a was scepter, that only he could lift. The war dragged on for years, and so as to end it a tribunal of divine judges was convened. Each side presented its arguments. The gods ruled in favor of Osiris and Horus and condemned Seth to the desert. Since he was no longer a living king, Osiris was made king and judge over the dead of the underworld. Horus inherited the throne of Egypt.

This myth was an expression of an Egyptian belief that good eventually triumphs over evil. The belief that their existence after death was dependent on their actions, good or bad, in this life gave Egyptians across all classes a chance at eternal life.

Origins and Cults

It is believed Seth was born in the Ombos-Naqada region in Upper Egypt, and a major sanctuary dedicated to Seth was built there. His cult was held in high esteem in this region, as well as in the northeast delta. In the thirty-second century BCE he was the chief god of the eastern desert and its gold mines. In the western desert, he protected the oases and vineyards. Seth often transformed himself into violent, uncontrollable animals to work his mischief, such as the bull, boar, crocodile, wild ass, or hippopotamus.

While Seth might not have always been worshipped as the chief god, he was a towering figure in Egyptian mythology, and accordingly revered in Egypt. His cult came to prominence intermittently throughout the dynasties. The twenty-seventh century BCE pharaoh Seth-Paribsen chose to be heralded by a creature of Seth instead of the traditional Horus one. And his successor Khasekhemwy referenced both Horus and Seth in his title. In seventeenth century BCE, the Hyksos, a group of mixed Asiatic migrants, took over the Nile delta and ruled northern Egypt. The Hyksos’ chief deity was Seth, who they associated with their Asian storm god.

Worship of Seth became prominent once again in the thirteenth century BCE, when two pharaohs fashioned their names after him—Seti I and Seti II. Seti I was the father of the famous Ramses II, known as Ramses the Great. These pharaohs were from the Nile delta region, where worship of Seth remained popular and saw Seth as a martial god. Ramses II named one of the four divisions of his army after Seth.

In mid–tenth century BCE, Seth’s popularity began to decline. He was seen as a wholly negative figure. Statues and bas reliefs of him were smashed, and his name erased.

At the Temple of Horus in Edfu, Horus’s triumph was celebrated at the Festival of Victory, with a re-enactment on the temple’s lake. The story ended with Seth, represented by a hippopotamus, being pierced by ten harpoons. The temple walls show Horus spearing Seth as he stands on his back. The god’s body is then cut into pieces and eaten so as to leave no option of a burial.

Bibliography

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