Mythology

Seth seems to have been originally a desert deity who early came to represent the forces of disturbance and confusion in the world. He is attested from the earliest periods and survived until late in the dynastic age, but the history of the god appears as tumultuous as his character. An ivory artifact carved in his distinctive form is known from the Naqada I Period (c 4000-3500 BC), and the god appears on standards carved on the macehead of the protodynastic ruler Scorpion, indicating that he was certainly well established by this time. In the 2nd d>masty the figure of Seth appears on the serekh (the device in which the king’s name was written) of Peribsen and together with Homs on the serekh of Khasekhemwy, indicating an equality at this time with the great falcon god. Yet after this the god seems to have lost some prominence, though in the Old Kingdom his importance is seen in his many appearances in the Pyramid Texts. By the Middle Kingdom Seth was assimilated into solar theology as the god who stood in the bow of the sun god’s barque to repel the cosmic serpent Apophis, and was already incorporated into the Heliopolitan Ennead as the son of the sky goddess .Nut, and the brother of Osiris, Isis and Nephthys. In the Hyksos Period Seth was identified by the foreign rulers with their own god Baal and rose to great importance as their chief deity. While not as important in the early New Kingdom, in the 19th and 20th dynasties the god was elevated as a kind of patron deity of the Ramessid kings - some of whom bore his name (e. g., Sethos ‘man of Seth’, and Sethnakhte ‘Seth is mighty’). But evidence for Seth declines after the 20th dynasty, and his role as god of the desert and foreign lands led to his association in the later periods with Egypt’s hated foreign enemies such as the Assyrians. By the 25fh dynasty, in fact, widespread veneration of Seth had virtually ended, yet he remains a fascinating if ominous deity whose character and miythology' reflect both negative and positive aspects.

God of violence, clmos and confusion: Seth was the ‘Red One’, the ill-tempered god who personified anger, rage and violence, and who was often regarded as evil personified. As the god of chaos he opposed the harmony of maat (truth) and was a veritable dark side to the fabric of the universe. As a god of the desert or ‘Red Land’, he opposed and threatened the vegetation upon which life itself depended; and as the inimical foe of Osiris, rightful king of Egypt, he represented rebellion and strife. In Egyptian writing the Seth animal was used as the

Mammalian Deities

Despite their inimical cliaracters, the reconciled Seth and Homs may be depicted as a combined deity loith ike heads of both gods.

Determinative sign for many words connoting confusion and chaos at the personal, social and cosmic levels. These aspects are all reflected in Egyptian mythology. An early tradition claimed that at birth he savagely tore himself free from his mother (PT 205), and his mythical relationships are characterized by dispute and violence. According to legend he murdered his brother Osiris and then engaged in a bitter contest - lasting 80 years - with Osiris’ son and heir Horus whom Seth challenged for the role of rulership. In this ongoing contest Seth put out the eye of Horus who in turn castrated Seth, doubtless an allusion to the suppression of the sexual power and violence of the god who was associated with rape and unnatural sexual desire. Although his sister Nephthys was said to be his wife, even she left him to become a ‘follower of Horus’ - as did the hippopotamus goddess Taweret w'ho was also said to be a consort of Seth along with the violent Semitic goddesses Astarte and Anat. In the Pyramid Texts (PT 1521) Seth is also paired with the sometimes belligerent goddess Neith. The god’s fearsome character is seen in Egyptian funerary literature of the New Kingdom where he is said to lurk in the netherworld and to seize the soul of the deceased, and his malevolent character was thought to be expressed in this world also: in all kinds of problems and crimes, in sickness and disease, as well as civil unrest and foreign invasion. He was associated with storms and bad weather of all tj'pes and was also thought to be the god of the wide, raging sea. Mythologically he could be identified with other malignant Egyptian deities including the great chaos serpent Apophis, and he was identified by the Greeks with their own rebellious god Typhon.

God of strength, cunning and protective poiver: The character of Seth was not entirely inimical, however, as he was also held to be cunning and of great strength and these qualities could be put to good use. One of his most common epithets was ‘great of strength’ and his sceptre was said to weigh the equivalent of some 2,000 kg (4,500 lb). He was the lord of metals; iron, the hardest metal known to the

Egyptians, was called 'the bones of Seth’. In the Pyramid Texts it is the strength of Seth that the deceased pharaoh claims (PT 1145) and many living kings linked themselves to him. The warrior Tuth-mosis nj called himself ‘beloved of Seth’, for example, and Ramesses II is said to have fought like Seth at the great Battle of Kadesh. The strength of Seth is also utilized in representational motifs associated with kingship, as in the scenes caiwed on the thrones of statues of Senwosret I in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which show Seth opposite Horus in the sema-tawy motif binding the symbolic emblems of the two halves of the land. Here the strength of the god as well as his juxtaposition with Horus is implicit in the scene. Even the gods utilized this god’s help. Thus, although Seth could be identified with the chaos serpent Apophis, he also was the sun god’s defender against the same monster, and a partially preserved myth tells how the strength and cunning of Seth were used to save the goddess Astarte from the baleful sea god Yam who had demanded her as tribute. Seth could also protect and help in other, more mundane ways. A diplomatic text which tells of Ramesses II’s marriage to a Hittite princess explains how the king prayed to Seth to mitigate the severe weather conditions which were obstructing the princess’s journey to Egypt, and the god’s help was similarly sought by many common people for protection or the removal of adverse conditions.