Iconography

Seth was originally depicted as an animal with a cur?ed head, tall square-topped ears, and erect arrow-like tail. In the earliest clear examples of the creature it is depicted standing, though later representations often show it in a seated or crouching stance. The god’s importance is clear in his representations. A 12th-dynasty pectoral now in the Myers Museum of Eton College shows the Seth animal in this representational form, in juxtaposition with the god Horus as emblems of the two kingdoms. The close association between Seth and the rulers of the Ramessid dynasties is also seen in monuments such as the statue in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which depicts the crouching god overshadowing and protecting a king in exactly the same manner in which other monarchs were portrayed beneath the figure of the Horus falcon. The seated Seth animal appeared on the standard of the 11th Upper Egyptian nome - in later times impaled with a knife to counteract any potential harmfulness of the image. There are also scenes showing the sun god’s barque being towed by Seth animals instead of the customary jackals.

As time progressed Seth was also represented in semi-anthropomorphic form as a man with the head of the Seth animal, and this form of his iconography is particularly common in New Kingdom times. Images and amulets of the god sometimes show him wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, or the

Tlwgod Seth, in his role as a martial deity, teaches Tuthmosis III the use of the war-bow. 18th dynasty. Detail of a relief Karnak.

Double Crown of all Egypt which he claimed as his own. He may also be shown fused with Horus as a two-headed deity - symbolically binding the ruler-ship of Upper and Lower Egypt. In the later periods sculptural representations of the god in this aspect were often changed into the form of more acceptable deities such as Thoth. Yet in some areas where his worship persisted the image of Seth was utilized until relatively late times. In the temple of Hibis in the el-Kharga Oasis the god is represented as a winged figure slaying the serpent Apophis, a depiction which some scholars believe may have provided the original inspiration for the Christian motif of St. George and the dragon. In addition to the Seth creature itself, a number of animals such as the antelope, ass or donkey, goat, pig, hippopotamus, crocodile, and certain fish were all regarded as symbolically noxious by the ancient Egyptians, so the god Seth could also be represented in the guise of any of these abhorred creatures. Sometimes such animals are used as visual circumlocutions for the god, just as in written texts he is often referred to indirectly as ‘Son of Nut’ rather than by name. In the first millenium BC, in fact, the Seth animal disappeared from art and writing, and the god was most frequently depicted as an ass with a knife in its head to render it harmless.