Worship

Despite the odious character of Seth, the god received considerable veneration in the course of Egyptian history. Even apart from those periods in which he was elevated to a special position, Seth had cult centres in various areas and particularly in Upper Egypt where he was often regarded as a patron deity of the region, symbolically balancing Horus in Lower Egypt. The earliest cult centre of the god was perhaps at ancient Nubt, the Greek Ombos, some 30 km (19 miles) north of Luxor, at the entrance to the Wadi Hammamat which controlled trade to the eastern desert regions, and it was in this area that Seth was said to have been born. He was particularly venerated in the 5th, 10th, 11th and 1.9th Upper Egyptian nomes, but Seth was also venerated in Lower Egypt, however, and especially in the area of the 14th nome which lay on Egypt’s northeastern frontier. A cult centre of the god also existed in the royal city of Pi-Ramesses in the Delta.

Although not an aspect of the veneration of the god, the sacrifice or destruction of various Sethian animals was part of the religious activity which surrounded him. From early times a red ox representing Seth was sacrificially slaughtered, and a similar ritual of ‘strangling the desert bird’ is also known. Perhaps the most important rituals of this ¦ype involved the hippopotamus, and as early as the I sr dynasty there is evidence for the royal hippopotamus hunt in which, in its developed form, the king hunted and destroyed a wild hippopotamus as a symbol of the victory of Horus over Seth. The destruction of the hippopotamus became especially important in the later periods when widespread veneration of Seth had virtually ended.

Amulets of the god are not common, though some which are extant are finely made and were probably worn in life. Seth was frequently invoked or mentioned in magical spells, however, where his power was utilized against other inimical deities or against conditions which were relevant to the god’s own mythology. Overall, however, for many Egyptians - over much of Egypt’s history - Seth seems to have remained an ambivalent deity at best. Wax models were made of the god and then thoroughly destroyed in order to combat his influence, and in the Egyptian calendar the birthday of Seth was regarded as a particularly unlucky day.