The Contending Of Horus And Seth

The messianic Essenes did not envision the Final War of Men as one in which the Company of the Divine would join the Congregation of the Mortals, and the “war cries of gods and men” would mingle on the battlefield.

What The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness had envisioned was simply that human warfare shall end just as it had begun: with gods and men fighting side by side.

Incredible as it may sound, a document does exist that describes the first war in which the gods involved mortal men. It is an inscription on the walls of the great temple at Edfu, an ancient Egyptian holy city that was dedicated to the god Horus. It was there.

Egyptian traditions held, that Horns established a foundry of “divine iron” and where, in a special enclosure, he maintained the great Winged Disk that could roam the skies. “When the doors of the foundry open,” an Egyptian text declared, “the Disk riseth up”:

The inscription (Fig. 6), remarkable for its geographical accuracy, begins with an exact date—a date not in the affairs of men but of the gods. It deals with events when the gods themselves, long before the Pharaohs, reigned over Egypt: In 363 AD, His Majesty, Ra, the Holy One. the Falcon of the Horizon, the Immortal Who Forever Lives, was in the land of Khenn. He was accompanied by his warriors, for the enemies had conspired against their lord in the district which has been called Ua-Ua since that day.

Ra went there in his boat, his companions with him. He landed in the district of the Throne Place of Horus, in the western part of this district, east of the House of Khennu, the one which has been called Royal Khennu from that time on.

Horus. the Winged Measurer, came to the boat of Ra. He said to his forefather: “O Falcon of the Horizon, I have seen the enemy conspire against thy Lordship, to take the Luminous Crown unto themselves.”

Fig. 6

With a few words the ancient scribe succeeded in drawing the background as well as setting the stage for the unusual war that was about to unfold. We gather at once that the fighting was brought on by a conspiracy by certain “enemies” of the gods Ra and Horus, to take away the “Luminous Crown of Lordship” unto themselves.

This could have been done only by some other god or gods. To forestall the conspiracy Ra—“accompanied by his warriors”—went in his boat to a district where Horns had set up his headquarters.

The “boat” of Ra was a Celestial Boat in which Ra could soar to the farthest heavens.

In this instance Ra used it to land far away from any waters, “in the western part” of the district of Ua-Ua. There he landed east of the “Throne Place” of Horus. And Horus came out to greet his forefather and reported to him that “the enemy” was gathering its forces.

Then Ra, the Holy One, the Falcon of the Horizon, said unto Horus, the Winged Measurer: “Lofty issue of Ra. my begotten: Go quickly, knock down the enemy whom you have seen.”

So instructed. Horns took off in the Winged Disk to search for the enemy from the skies:

So Horus, the Winged Measurer, flew up toward the horizon in the Winged Disk of Ra; it is therefore that he has been called from that day on “Great God. Lord of the Skies.”

From the skies, flying in the Winged Disk. Horus spotted the enemy forces and unleashed upon them a “storm” that could neither be seen nor heard, yet it brought instantaneous death:

In the heights of the skies, from the Winged Disk, he saw the enemies, and came upon them from behind. From his forepart he let loose against them a Storm which they could neither see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears. It brought death to all of them in a single moment; not a being remained alive through this.

Horus then flew back to the boat of Ra in the Winged Disk, “which shined in many colors.” and heard his victory made official by Thoth. the god of magical crafts: Then Horus, the Winged Measurer, reappeared in the Winged Disk, which shined in many colors; and he came back to the boat of Ra, the Falcon of the Horizon.

And Thoth said: “O Lord of the gods! The Winged Measurer has returned in the great Winged Disk, shining with many colors”. . . .

Therefore is he named from that day on “The Winged Measurer.” And they named after Horus, the Winged Measurer, the city of Hut “Behutet,” from that day on.

The first battle took place in Upper Egypt between Horus and “the enemies.”

Heinrich Brugsch, who first published the text of the inscription back in 1870 (Die Sage von der geflugten Sonnenscheibe), suggested that the “Land of Khenn” was Nubia, and that Horus had spotted the enemies at Syene (today’s Aswan).

More recent studies, such as Egypt in Nubia by Walter B. Emery, agree that Ta-Khenn was Nubia and that Ua-Ua was the name of its northern part, the area between the Nile’s first and second cataracts. (The southern part of Nubia was called Kush.) These identifications seem valid, since the city of Behutet. which was granted to Horus as a prize for his first victory, was the very city of Edfu, which has been dedicated to Horus ever since.

Traditions held that Edfu was where Horus established a divine metal foundry, at which unique weapons made of “divine iron” were forged. It was there, too. that Horus trained an army of mesniu—“Metal People.” They were depicted on the walls of the temple of Edfu as men with shaven heads, wearing a short tunic and a deep collar, carrying weapons in each hand.

A depiction of an unidentified, harpoonlike weapon was included in the hieroglyphic words for “divine iron” and “metal people.” The mesniu were, according to Egyptian traditions, the first men ever to have been armed by the gods with weapons made of metal. They also were, as we shall soon gather from the unfolding tale, the first men to have been enlisted by a god to fight in the wars between the gods. The area between Aswan and Edfu now firmly secured, and men-warriors armed and trained, the gods were ready to advance northward, toward the heartland of Egypt.

The initial victories apparently also strengthened the alliance of the gods, for we are told that the Asiatic goddess Ishtar (the Egyptian text calls her by her Canaanite name, Ashtoreth) had joined the group. Hovering in the sky, Horus called on Ra to scout the land below: And Horus said: “Advance, O Ra! Look for the enemies who are lying below, upon the land!”

Then Ra, the Holy One, travelled forth; and Ashtoreth was The Contending of Horus and Seth with him. And they looked for the enemies upon the land; but each one of them was hidden.

Since the enemies on the land were hidden from sight, Ra had an idea: “And Ra said unto the gods accompanying him: ‘Let us guide our vessel toward the water, for the enemy lies in the land.’ And they called the waters ‘The Travelled Waters’ from that day on.” While Ra could utilize the amphibious capabilities of his vehicle, Horus was in need of a waterborne vessel. So they gave him a boat, “and called it Mak-A (Great Protector) unto this day.” It was then that the first battle involving mortal men ensued: But the enemies too went into the waters, making themselves as crocodiles and hippopotami, and they were striking at the boat of Ra, the Falcon of the Horizon. . . .

It was then that Horus, the Winged Measurer, came along with his helpers, those who served as warriors, each one called by name, with the Divine Iron and a chain in their hands, and they beat off the crocodiles and the hippopotami. And they hauled up 651 enemies to that place; they were killed in sight of the city.

Ra. the Falcon of the Horizon, said unto Horus, the Winged Measurer: “Let this place be known as the place where thine victory in the southlands has been established.” Having vanquished their enemies from the skies, on land, and in the waters, the victory of Horus seemed complete; and Thoth called for a celebration:

Thoth said to the other gods: “O Gods of Heaven, let your hearts rejoice! O Gods of Earth, let your hearts rejoice! The young Horus has brought peace, having performed extraordinary feats in this campaign.”

It was then that the Winged Disk was adopted as the emblem of Horus victorious:

It is from that day that the metal emblems of Horus have existed. It was Horus who had fashioned as his emblem the Winged Disk, placing it upon the forepart of the boat of Ra. The goddess of the north and the goddess of the south, represented as two serpents, he placed alongside.

Horus stood behind the emblem, upon the boat of Ra, the Divine Iron and the ehain in his hand.

In spite of the proclamation of Horus by Thoth as a bringer of peace, peace was not yet in hand.

As the company of the gods kept advancing northward, “they glimpsed two brightnesses on a plain southeast of Thebes. And Ra said to Thoth: “This is the enemy; let Horus slaughter them. …” And Horus made a great massacre among them.”

Once again, with the aid of the army of men he had trained and armed, Horus was victorious; and Thoth kept naming the locations after the successful battles.

While the first aerial battle broke through the defenses separating Egypt from Nubia at Syene (Aswan), the ensuing battles on land and water secured for Horus the bend of the Nile, from Thebes to Dendera. There great temples and royal sites proliferated in days to come. Now the way was open into the heartland of Egypt.

For several days the gods advanced northward—Horus keeping watch from the skies in the Winged Disk, Ra and his companions sailing down the Nile, and the Metal People guarding the flanks on land.

A series of brief, but fierce, encounters then ensued; the place names—well established in ancient Egyptian geographyindicate that the attacking gods reached the area of lakes that had stretched in antiquity from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (some of which still remain):

Then the enemies distanced themselves from him, toward the north. They placed themselves in the water district, facing the back-sea of the Mediterranean; and their hearts were stricken with fear of him.

But Horus. the Winged Measurer, followed close behind them in the boat of Ra, the Divine Iron in his hand. And all his Helpers, armed with weapons of iron forged, were staged all around.

But the attempt to surround and entrap the enemies did not succeed: ‘“For four days and four nights he roamed the waters in pursuit of them, without seeing even one of the enemies.” Ra then advised him to go up again in the Winged Disk, and this lime Horus was able to see the fleeing enemies; “he hurled his Divine Lance after them and he slew them, and performed a great overthrow of them. He also brought 142 enemy prisoners to the forepart of the boat of Ra,” where they were quickly executed.

The Edfu temple inscription now shifts to a new panel, for indeed there began a new chapter in that War of the Gods. The enemies that had managed to escape “directed themselves by the Lake of the North, setting themselves toward the Mediterranean, which they desired to reach by sailing through the water district. But the god smote their hearts [with fear), and when they reached the middle of the waters as they fled, they directed themselves from the western lake to the waters which connect with the lakes of the district Mer, in order to join themselves there with the enemies who were the Land of Seth.”

These verses provide not only geographical information; they also identify “the enemies” for the first time. The conflict had shifted to the chain of lakes that in antiquity, much more than nowadays, physically separated Egypt proper from the Sinai peninsula. To the east, beyond this watery barrier, lay the domain of Seth— the erstwhile adversary and slayer of Osiris, the father of Horns. Seth, we now learn, was the enemy against whose forces Horus had been advancing from the south. And now Horus reached the line dividing Egypt from the Land of Seth.

For a while there was a lull in the fighting, during which Horus brought up to the front line his armed Metal People, and Ra reached the scene in his boat. The enemies, too, regrouped and crossed back the waters, and a major battle followed. This time, 381 of the enemy were captured and executed (no casualty figures on the side of Horus are ever given in the text); and Horus. in hot pursuit, crossed the waters into the territory of Seth.

It was then, according to the inscription in the great temple of Edfu, that Seth was so enraged that he faced Horus for a series of battles—on the ground and in the air—for god-to-god combat. Of this combat there have been found several versions, as we shall see. What is interesting at this point is the fact brought out by E. A. Wallis Budge in The Gods of the Egyptians: that in the first involvement of men in the Wars of the Gods, it was the arming of mankind with the Divine Iron that brought victory to Horus: “It is pretty clear that he owed his success chiefly to the superiority of the weapons with which he and his men were armed, and to the material of which they were made.” Thus, according to Egyptian writings, did man learn to lift sword against man.

When all the fighting was over, Ra expressed satisfaction with the works of “these Metal People of Horus,” and he decreed that henceforth they “shall dwell in sanctuaries” and shall be served with libations and offerings “as their reward, because they have slain the enemies of the god Horus.” They were settled at Edfu, the Upper Egypt capital of Horus, and in This (Tanis in Greek, the biblical Zo’an), the Lower Egypt capital of the god. In time they outgrew their purely military role and attained the title Shamsu-Hor (“Attendants of Horus”), serving as his human aides and emissaries.

The inscription on the temple walls at Edfu. it has been established, was a copy of a text that was known to the Egyptian scribes from earlier sources; but when and by whom the original text had been composed, no one can really tell. Scholars who have studied the inscription have concluded that the accurate geographical and other data in the text indicate (in the words of E. A. Wallis Budge) “that we are not dealing entirely with mythological events; and it is nearly certain that the triumphant progress ascribed to HorBehutet (Horus of Edfu) is based upon the exploits of some victorious invader who established himself at Edfu in very early times.”

As with all Egyptian historical texts, this one, too, begins with a date: “In the year 363.” Such dates always indicate the year in the reign of the Pharaoh to whom the event pertains: each Pharaoh had his first year, second year, and so on. The text in question, however, deals not with the affairs of kings but with divine matters—a war among the gods. The text thus relates events that had happened in the “year 363” in the reign of certain gods and takes us back to the early times when gods, not men, ruled over Egypt.

That there indeed had been such a time, Egyptian traditions left no doubt. The Greek historian Herodotus (fifth century B.C.), on his extensive visit to Egypt, was given by the priests details of the Pharaonic dynasties and reigns. “The priests,” he wrote, “said that Men was the first king of Egypt, and that it was he who raised the dyke which protects Memphis from the inundations of the Nile,” diverted the river, and proceeded to build Memphis on the reclaimed land. “Besides these works he also, the priests said, built the temple of Vulcan, which stands within the city, a vast edifice, very worthy of mention. “Next they read me from a papyrus the names of 330 monarchs who were his successors upon the throne. In this number of successors there were eighteen Ethiopian kings, and one queen who was a native: all the rest were kings and Egyptians.”

The priests then showed Herodotus rows of statues representing the successive Pharaohs and related to him various details pertaining to some of these kings and their claims to divine ancestry. “The beings represented by these images were very far indeed from being gods,” Herodotus commented; “however,” he went on to say:

In times preceding them it was otherwise: Then Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the Earth with men, one of them being always supreme above the rest. The last of these was Horus, the son of Osiris, whom the Greeks called Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king.

In his book Against Apion, the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus quoted as one of his sources on the history of Egypt the writings of an Egyptian priest named Manetho.

Such writings were never found; but any doubt regarding the existence of such a historian was dispelled when it was realized that his writings formed the basis for several works by later Greek historians. It is now established with certainty that Manetho (his hieroglyphic name meant “Gift of Thoth”), indeed a high priest and great scholar, compiled the history of Egypt in several volumes at the command of king Ptolemy Philadelphus circa 270 B.C. The original manuscript was deposited in the great library of Alexandria, only to perish there together with numerous other invaluable documents when the building and its contents were set on fire by Muslim conquerors in A.D. 642.

Manetho was the first known historian to have divided the Egyptian rulers into dynasties—a practice continued to this day. His King List—names, lengths of reign, order of succession, and some other pertinent information—has been mainly preserved through the writings of Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea (in the third and fourth centuries A.D.). These and other versions based on Manetho agree that he listed as the first ruler of the first dynasty of Pharaohs the king Men (Menes in Greek)—the very same king that Herodotus reported, based on his own investigations in Egypt.

This fact has since been confirmed by modem discoveries, such as the Tablet of Abydos (Fig. 7) in which the Pharaoh Seti I, accompanied by his son, Ramses II, listed the names of seventy-five of his predecessors. The first one to be named is Mena.

Fig. 7

If Herodotus was correct in regard to the dynasties of Egyptian Pharaohs, could he also have been right in regard to a “preceding time” when ‘“Egypt had gods for its rulers”?

Manetho. we find, had agreed with Herodotus also on that matter. The dynasties of the Pharaohs, he wrote, were preceded by four other dynasties—two of gods, one of demigods, and a transitional dynasty. At first, he wrote, seven great gods reigned over Egypt for a total of 12,300 years: Ptah ruled 9,000 years Ra ruled 1,000 years Shu ruled 700 years Geb ruled 500 years Osiris ruled 450 years Scth ruled 350 years Horns ruled 300 years Seven gods ruled 12,300 years

The second dynasty of gods consisted of 12 divine rulers.

• The first of whom was the god Thoth.

They reigned for 1,570 years.

19 gods ruled for 13,870 years.

Then there followed a dynasty of 30 demigods, who reigned for 3,650 years.

In all, there were 49 divine and semidivine rulers over Egypt, reigning a total of 17,520 years.

Then, for 350 years, there was no ruler over the whole of Egypt.

It was a chaotic time, during which ten human rulers continued the kingship at This.

Only thereafter did Men establish the first human dynasty of Pharaohs and built a new capital dedicated to the god Ptah—the “Vulcan” of Herodotus.

A century and a half of archaeological discoveries and the deciphering of the hieroglyphic writing have convinced scholars that the Pharaonic dynasties probably began in Egypt circa 3100 B.C.; indeed, under a ruler whose hieroglyph reads Men. He united Upper and Lower Egypt and established his capital at a new city called Men-Nefer (“The Beauty of Men”)—Memphis in Greek. His accession to this throne of a united Egypt had indeed followed a chaotic period of a disunited Egypt, as Manetho had stated.

An inscription on an artifact known as the Palermo Stone has preserved at least nine archaic names of kings who wore only the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and who ruled before Menes.

Tombs and actual artifacts have been found belonging to archaic kings bearing such names as “Scorpion,” Ka, Zeser, Narmer, and Sma. Sir Flinders Petrie, the noted Egyptologist, claimed in his The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty and other writings that these names correspond to names given by Manetho in the list often human rulers who reigned at Tanis during the chaotic centuries. Petrie suggested that this group, which preceded the First Dynasty, be called “Dynasty O.”

A major archaeological document dealing with Egyptian kingship, the so-called Turin Papyrus, begins with a dynasty of gods that lists Ra, Geb, Osiris, Seth, and Horns, then Thoth, Maat, and others, and assigns to Horus—just as Manetho did—a reign of 300 years. This papyrus, which dates from the time of Ramses II, lists after the divine rulers thirty-eight semidivine rulers: “Nineteen Chiefs of the White Wall and nineteen Venerables of the North.” Between them and Menes, the Turin Papyrus states, there ruled human kings under the patronage of Horus; their epithet was Shamsu-Hor!

Addressing the Royal Society of Literature in London in 1843, the curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, Dr. Samuel Birch, announced that he had counted on the papyrus and its fragments a total of 330 names—a number that “coincided with the 330 kings mentioned by Herodotus.”

Even if they disagree among themselves on details, Egyptologists now agree that the archaeological discoveries sustain the information provided by the ancient historians concerning the dynasties begun by Menes, following a chaotic period of about ten rulers in a disunited Egypt; and that there had been a prior period when Egypt was united under rulers whose names could have been none other than Horus, Osiris, and so on. However, scholars who find it difficult to accept that these rulers were “gods” suggest that they were only “deified” human beings.

To throw more light on the subject, we can start with the very place chosen by Menes for the capital of the reunified Egypt. The location of Memphis, we find, was not a matter of chance; it was related to certain events pertaining to the gods. Nor was the manner in which Memphis was built unsymbolic: Menes built the city on an artificial mound, created through the diversion of the Nile at that spot and other extensive damming, dyking, and land-reclamation works. This he did in emulation of the manner in which Egypt itself had been created. The Egyptians believed that “a very great god who came forth in the earliest times” arrived in the land and found it lying under water and mud. He undertook great works of dyking and land reclamation, literally raising Egypt out of the waters—thus explaining Egypt’s nickname “The Raised Land.” This olden god was named Ptah—a “God of Heaven and Earth.” He was considered to be a great engineer and master artificer.

The veracity of the legend of The Raised Land is enhanced by its technological aspects. The Nile is a peaceful and navigable river up to Syene (Aswan); beyond that, the river’s southward course is treacherous and obstructed by several cataracts. Just as the level of the Nile is regulated today by the dams at Aswan, so apparently was it in prehistoric Egypt. Ptah, Egyptian legends held, established his base of operations on the island of Abu. the one called since Greek times Elephantine on account of its shape: it is located just above the first cataract of the Nile, at Aswan. In text and drawings (Fig. 8) Ptah, whose symbol was the serpent, was depicted as Fig. 8

controlling the Nile’s waters from subterranean caverns. “It was he who kept the doors that held the inundations, who drew back the bolts at the proper time.” In technical language we are being informed that at the most appropriate site from an engineering point of view, Ptah built “twin caverns” (two connected reservoirs) whose locks could be opened and closed, “bolted” and unbolted, thus regulating artificially the level and flow of the Nile’s waters.

Ptah and the other gods were called, in Egyptian, Ntr—“Guardian, Watcher.” They had come to Egypt, the Egyptians wrote, from Ta-Ur, the “Far/Foreign Land,” whose name Ur meant “olden” but could have also been the actual place name—a place well known from Mesopotamian and biblical records: the ancient city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia. And the straits of the Red Sea, which connected Mesopotamia and Egypt, were called Ta-Neter, the “Place of the Gods,” the passage by which they had come to Egypt. That the earliest gods did come from the biblical lands of Shem is additionally borne out by the puzzling fact that the names of these olden gods were of “Semitic” (Akkadian) derivation. Thus Ptah, which had no meaning in Egyptian, meant “he who fashioned things by carving and opening up” in the Semitic tongues.

In time—after 9,000 years, according to Manetho—Ra, a son of Ptah, became the ruler over Egypt. His name, too, had no meaning in Egyptian, but because Ra was associated with a bright celestial body, scholars assume that Ra meant “bright.” We do know with greater certainty that one of his nicknames, Tem, had the Semitic connotation “the Complete, the Pure One.”

It was believed by the Egyptians that Ra, too, had come to Earth from the “Planet of Millions of Years” in a Celestial Barge, the conical upper part of which, called Ben-Ben (“Pyramidion Bird”), was later on preserved in a specially built shrine in the sacred city Anu (the biblical On, which is better known by its Greek name Heliopolis). In dynastic times Egyptians made pilgrimages to this shrine to view the Ben-Ben and other relics associated with Ra and the celestial travels of the gods. It was to Ra as Tern that the Israelites were forced to build the city called in the Bible Pi-Torn— “The Gateway of Tern.”

It was the Heliopolitan priests who first recorded the traditions of the gods of Egypt and who related that the first “company” of the gods headed by Ra consisted of nine “Guardians”—Ra and lour divine couples who followed him. The first divine couple to rule when Ra tired of staying in Egypt were his own children, the male Shu (“Dryness”’) and the female Tefnut (“Moisture”): their main task, according to Egyptian talcs, was to help Ra control the skies over the Earth.

Shu and Tefnut set the example for mortal Pharaohs in later times: the king selected his own half-sister as his royal spouse. They were followed on the divine throne—as both legends and Manetho inform us—by their children, again a brother-sister couple: Geb (“Who Piles Up the Earth”) and Nut (“The Stretched-out Firmament”).

The purely mythological approach to the Egyptian tales of the gods—that of primitive people watching Nature and seeing “gods” in its phenomena—has led scholars to assume that Geb represented the Earth deified, and Nut the Heavens: and that by calling Geb and Nut Father and Mother of the gods who thereafter reigned over Egypt, the Egyptians believed that the gods were born of the union of Earth and Heaven. But if the legends and verses in the Pyramid Texts and The Book of the Dead are to be taken more literally, it appears that Geb and Nut were so named on account of activities related to the periodic appearance of the Bennu bird, from which the Greeks obtained the legend of the Phoenix: an eagle whose feathers were red and gold, which died and reappeared at intervals lasting several millennia.

It was for that bird—whose name was the same as that of the contraption in which Ra landed on Earth—that Geb engaged in great earthworks and Nut “stretched out the firmament of the sky.” These feats, it appears, were carried out by the gods in the “Land of the Lions”; it was there that Geb “hath opened up the earth” for the great spherical object that came from the “stretched-out skies” and appeared on the horizon.

In the aftermath of the above-described feats, Geb and Nut turned over the direct rule of Egypt to their four children: Asar (“The All-Seeing”), whom the Greeks called Osiris, and his sisterwife Ast, better known as Isis; and Seth and his wife Nephtys (Nebt-Hat, “Lady of the House”), the sister of Isis. It was with these gods, who were truly gods of Egypt, that the Egyptian tales most concerned themselves; but in depicting them (Fig. 9) Seth was never shown without his animal disguise: his face was never seen, and the meaning of his name still defies Egyptologists, even if it is identical to the name given in the Bible to Adam and Eve’s third son.

With 2 brothers who married their own two sisters, the gods confronted a serious problem of succession. The only plausible solution was to divide the kingdom: Osiris was given the northern lowlands (Lower Egypt), and Seth was given the southern, mountainous part (Upper Egypt). How long this arrangement lasted we can only guess from Manetho’s chronicles: but it is certain that Seth was not satisfied with the division of sovereignty and resorted to various schemes to gain control over the whole of Egypt.

Scholars have assumed that the sole motive of Seth was a craving for power. But once one grasps what the gods’ rules of succession were, it becomes possible to understand the profound effect these rules had upon the affairs of the gods (and then of human kings). Since the gods (and then men) could have, in addition to the official spouse, one or more concubines, as well as beget children through illicit love affairs, the first rule of succession was this: the son first born to the official spouse was the heir to the throne. If the official spouse bore no son, the son first born to any of the concubines became the heir. However, if at any time, even after the birth of the Firstborn heir, a son was born to the ruler by his own halfsister, this son superseded the Firstborn and became the Legal Heir.

It was this custom that was the cause of much rivalry and strife among the Gods of Heaven and Earth and—we suggest—explains the basic motivation of Seth. Our source for this suggestion is the treatise De hide et Osiride (Of his and Osiris) by Plutarch, a historian-biographer of the first century A.D., who wrote down for the Greeks and Romans of his time the legendary histories of the Near Eastern gods. The Egyptian sources on which he relied were believed at the time to have been writings of the god Thoth himself, who. as the Scribe of the Gods, recorded for all times their histories and deeds upon this Earth.

“Now the story of Isis and Osiris, its most significant [retained] and superfluous parts omitted, is thus briefly related,” wrote Plutarch in his opening sentence and went on to tell that Nut (whom the Greeks compared with their goddess Rhea) had mothered three sons: the firstborn was Osiris, the last Seth. She also gave birth to two daughters, Isis and Nephtys. But not all of these children were really fathered by Geb: only Seth and Nephtys were. Osiris and his second brother were in truth fathered by the god Ra, who came unto his granddaughter Nut in stealth; and Isis was fathered by Thoth (the Greek god Hermes) who, “being likewise in love with the same goddess,” reciprocated in various ways “in recompense for the favours which he had received from her.”

The setting, then, was this: the firstborn was Osiris, and. though not by Geb. his claim to the succession was even greater, having been fathered by the great Ra himself. But the legitimate heir was Seth, having been born to the ruling Geb by his half-sister Nut. As if this were not enough, matters were further complicated by the race between the two brothers to assure that their son would be the next legitimate successor. To achieve that Seth could have fathered a son only by his half-sister Isis, whereas Osiris could achieve this by fathering a son by either Isis or Nephtys (both being only halfsisters to him). But Osiris deliberately blocked Seth’s chances to have his descendants rale over Egypt by taking Isis as his spouse. Seth then married Nephtys; but as she was his full sister, none of their offspring could qualify.

So was the stage set for Seth’s increasingly violent rage against Osiris, who deprived him both of the throne and of the succession. The occasion for Seth’s revenge, according to Plutarch, was the visit to Egypt of “a certain queen of Ethiopia named Aso. “In conspiracy with his supporters Seth held a banquet in her honor, to which all the gods were invited. For his scheme Seth had a magnificent chest constructed, large enough to hold Osiris: “This chest he brought into the banqueting room; where, after it had been much admired by all who were present, Seth—as though in jestpromised to give it to any one of them whose body it would fit. Upon this the whole company, one after the other, went into the chest.

“Last of all, Osiris lay himself down in it, upon which the conspirators immediately ran together, clapped the cover upon it, and then fastened it down on the outside with nails, pouring likewise melted lead over it.” They then carried the chest in which Osiris was imprisoned to the seashore, and where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean at Tanis sank the chest in the sea.

Dressed in mourning apparel and cutting off a lock of her hair as a sign of grief. Isis went in search of the chest, “At length she received more particular news of the chest, that it had been carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos” (in what is now Lebanon). Isis retrieved the chest holding the body of Osiris and hid it in a deserted place until she could figure out how to resurrect Osiris. But Seth somehow found all that out, seized the chest, and cut up the body of Osiris into fourteen pieces, which he dispersed all over Egypt.

Once again Isis went in search of the scattered limbs of her brother-husband. Some versions say that she buried the pans where she found them, starting the worship of Osiris at those places: others say she bound together the parts she found, starting the custom of mummification. All agree that she found all parts except one—the phallus of Osiris. Nevertheless, before finally disposing of the body, she managed to extract from the body of Osiris its “essence,” and self-inseminated herself with his seed, thus conceiving and giving birth to the boy Horus. She hid him from Seth in the papyrus swamps of the Nile delta.

Many legends have been found concerning the events that followed: legends copied and recopied on papyri, forming chapters of The Book of the Dead, or used as verses in the Pyramid texts. Put together they reveal a major drama that involved legal maneuvering, kidnapping for purposes of state, a magical return from the dead, homosexuality, and finally a great war—a drama in which the stake was the Divine Throne of the gods.

Since all seemed to believe that Osiris had perished without leaving an heir, Seth saw this as his chance to obtain a legitimate heir by forcing Isis to espouse him. He kidnapped her and held her prisoner until she consented, but with the aid of the god Thoth, Isis managed to escape. A version recorded on the so-called Metternich Stela, composed as a tale by Isis in her own words, describes her escape in the night and her adventures until she reached the swamps where Horus was hidden. She found Horus dying from a scorpion’s sting (Fig. 10). One can infer from the text that it was word of her son’s dying that prompted her escape. The people who lived in the swamps came out at her cries but were helpless to be of any aid. Then help came from a spacecraft:

Fig. 10

Then Isis sent forth a cry to heaven and addressed her appeal to the Boat of Millions of Years. And the Celestial Disk stood still, and moved not from the place where it was.

And Thoth came down, and he was provided with magical powers, and possessed the great power which made the word become indeed. And he said: “O Isis, thou goddess, thou glorious one, who has knowledge of the mouth; behold, no evil shall come upon the child Horus, for his protection cometh from the Boat of Ra.

“I have come this day in the Boat of the Celestial Disk from the place where it was yesterday. When the night cometh, this Light shall drive away [the poison] for the healing of Horus. . . . “I have come from the skies to save the child for his mother.”

Revived from death by the artful Thoth and, some texts say, immunized forever as a result of Thoth’s treatment, Horus grew up as Netch-atef, “Avenger of his Father.” Educated and trained in martial arts by goddesses and gods who sided with Osiris, he was groomed as a Divine Prince worthy of celestial association. Then, one day, he appeared before the Council of the Gods to claim the throne of Osiris.

Of the many gods who were surprised by his appearance, none was more so than Seth. All seemed to wonder: Did Osiris indeed father this son? As described in a text known as the Chester Beatly Papyrus No. 1, Seth suggested that the gods’ deliberations be recessed so as to give him a chance to discuss the problem peacefully with his newly appeared nephew. He invited Horus to “come, let us pass a happy day in my house,” and Horus agreed. But what Seth had in mind was not peacemaking; his mind was set on trickery: And when it was eventide, the bed was spread for them, and the twain lay thereon.

And in the night Seth caused his member to become stiff, and he made it go between the loins of Horus. When the gods next met in council, Seth demanded that the Office of Ruler be resolved as his, for Horus was disqualified: whether or not he was of the seed of Osiris, the seed of Seth was now in him. entitling him to succeed, not precede, Seth!

Now it was the turn of Horus to surprise the gods. When Seth poured out his semen, “I caught the seed between my hands,” Horus said. In the morning he showed it to his mother, telling her what had happened. Isis then made Horus erect his member and pour his semen into a cup. Then she went to the garden of Seth and poured the semen of Horus on the lettuce that Seth then unknowingly ate. So, announced Horus, “Not only is Seth’s seed not in me, but my seed is in him! It is Seth who has been disqualified!”

Baffled, the gods called upon Thoth to resolve the issue. He checked the semen that Horus had given his mother, which Isis kept in a pot; it was found to be indeed the semen of Seth. He then scanned the body of Seth and confirmed that it contained the semen of Horus. . . .

Enraged, Seth did not wait for the discussions to continue. Only a fight to the bitter end could now settle the issue, he shouted as he left. Seth had by then, per Manctho, ruled 350 years. If we add to this the time—thirteen years, we believe—it had taken Isis to find the thirteen parts of the dismembered Osiris, it was indeed “in the year 363” that Ra joined Horus in Nubia, from there to accompany Horus on his war against “the Enemy.” In Horus, Royal God of Egypt, S. B. Mercer summed up the scholarly opinions on the subject with these emphatic words: “The story of the conflict between Horus and Seth represents a historical event.”

According to the Edfu temple inscription, the first face-to-face battle between Horus and Seth took place at the “Lake of the Gods,” thereafter known as the “Lake of Battle.” Horus managed to hit Seth with his Divine Lance; when Seth fell down, Horus captured him and brought him before Ra. “His spear was in his (Seth’s] neck, and the legs of the evil one were chained, and his mouth had been closed by a blow from the club of the god [Horus].” Ra decided that Isis and Horus could do with Seth and the other captured “conspirators” as they pleased.

But as Horus began to slay the captives by cutting off their heads, Isis had pity on her brother Seth, and set him free. There are several versions of what ensued, including one known as the Fourth Sallier Papyrus; and, according to most, the release of Seth so infuriated Horus that he beheaded his own mother, Isis; but the god Thoth put her severed head back in place and resurrected her. (This incident is also reported by Plutarch.)

After his escape Seth at first hid in a subterranean tunnel. After a lull of six days, a series of aerial battles ensued. Horus took to the air in a Nar (a “Fiery Pillar”), which was depicted as an elongated, cylindrical vessel equipped with fins or short wings. Its bulkhead contained two “eyes,” which kept changing color from blue to red and back to blue; from the rear, jetlike trails were shown (Fig. 11); from the front, the contraption spewed out rays. Fig. 11

(The Egyptian texts, all written by the followers of Horus, contain no description of Seth’s aerial vehicle.)

The texts describe a battle that ranged far and wide, and the first to be hit was Horus—struck by a bolt of light from Seth’s vehicle. The Nar lost one of its “eyes.’’ and Horus continued the fight from the Winged Disk of Ra. From out of this he shot a “harpoon’” at Seth; now Seth was hit. and lost his testicles. . . .

Dwelling on the nature of the weapon. W. Max Muller wrote in Egyptian Mythology that it had “a strange, practically impossible head” and was nicknamed in the hieroglyphic texts “the weapon of thirty.” As ancient depictions reveal (Fig. 12a). the “harpoon” was indeed an ingenious three-in-one rocket: as the first, larger missile was fired, the way was opened for the two smaller missiles to be launched.

The nickname (“Weapon of Thirty”) suggests that the missiles were what we nowadays call Multiple Warhead Missiles, each missile holding ten warheads. Through sheer coincidence, but probably because similar circumstances result in similar connotations, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, has named its newly developed naval guided missile “The Harpoon” (Fig. 12b). The great gods called a truce and once again summoned the adversaries before the Council of the Gods. We glean details of the deliberations from a text inscribed on a stone column by the Pharaoh Shabako (eighth century B.C.), who stated that the text is a copy made from a very old leather scroll, “devoured by worms,” which was found buried in the great temple of Ptah at Memphis.

The Council, at first, redivided Egypt between Horus and Seth along the lines of the division at the time of Osiris, but Geb had second thoughts and upset the decision, for he was concerned with the question of continuity: Who would “open the body” to successive generations? Seth, having lost his testicles, could no longer have offspring. . . . And so Geb, “Lord Earth, gave as a heritage to Horus” the whole of Egypt. To Seth a dominion away from Egypt was to be given; henceforth, he was deemed by the Egyptians to have become an Asiatic deity. The Council of the Gods adopted the recommendations unanimously. Its final action is thus described in the Papyrus of Hunefer:

Horus is triumphant in the presence of the whole company of the gods. The sovereignty over the world hath been given unto him. and his dominion is in the uttermost parts of Earth.

The throne of the god Geb hath been adjudged unto him. along with the rank which hath been founded by the god Shu. This legitimization, the Papyrus went on to say: Hath been formalized by deerees [lodged] in the Chamber of Records;

It hath been inscribed upon a metal tablet according to the commandments of thy father Ptah. . . . Gods celestial and gods terrestrial transfer themselves to the services of thy son Horns. They follow him to the Hall of Decrees. He shall lord over them.