Set

style="border-bottom:2px solid Template:Hiero/Egypt/bordercolour; background:Template:Hiero/Egypt/bgcolour; padding:5px; text-align:center;" | Sutekh in hieroglyphs

In Egyptian mythology, Set (also spelled Sutekh, Setesh, Seteh) is an ancient god, who was originally the god of the desert, one of the two main biomes that constitutes Egypt, the other being the small fertile area on either side of the Nile. Due to developments in the Egyptian language over the 3,000 years that Set was worshipped, by the Greek period, the t in Set was pronounced so indistinguishably from th that the Greeks spelt it as Seth.

Origins of name

The exact translation of Set is unknown for certain, but is usually considered to be either (one who) dazzles or pillar of stability, one connected to the desert, and the other more to the institution of monarchy. It is reconstructed to have been originally pronounced *Sūtaḫ based on the occurrence of his name in Egyptian hieroglyphics (swtḫ), and his later mention in the Coptic documents with the name Sēt.

Desert god

Set represented in the tomb of Thutmose III (KV34)

As he was the god of the desert, Set was associated with sandstorms, and desert caravans. Due to the extreme hostility of the desert environment, Set was viewed as immensely powerful, and was regarded consequently as the chief god. One of the more common epithets was that he was great of strength, and in one of the Pyramid Texts it states that the king's strength is that of Set. As chief god, he was patron of Lower Egypt, where he was worshipped, most notably at Ombos. The alternate form of his name, spelt Setesh (stš), and later Sutekh (swtḫ), designates this supremacy, the extra sh and kh signifying majesty.

Set formed part of the Ennead of Heliopolis, as a son of the earth (Geb) and sky (Nut), husband to the fertile land around the Nile (Nebt-het/Nephthys), and brother to death (Ausare/Osiris), and life (Aset/Isis).

The word for desert, in Egyptian, was Tesherit, which is very similar to the word for red, Tesher (in fact, it has the appearance of a feminine form of the word for red). Consequently, Set became associated with things that were red, including people with red hair, which is not an attribute that Egyptians generally had, and so he became considered to also be a god of foreigners.^{[citation needed]}

Set's attributes as desert god lead to him also being associated with gazelles, and donkeys, both creatures living on the desert edge. Since sandstorms were said to be under his control as lord of the desert, and were the main form of storm in the dry climate of Egypt, during the Ramesside Period, Set was identified as various Canaanite storm deities, including Baal.

The Set animal

In art, Set was mostly depicted as a mysterious and unknown creature, referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal or Typhonic beast, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Set animal. It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it does resemble a composite of an aardvark and a jackal, both of which are desert creatures, and the main species of aardvark present in ancient Egypt additionally had a reddish appearance (due to thin fur, which shows the skin beneath it). In some descriptions he has the head of a greyhound. The earliest known representation of Set comes from a tomb dating to the Naqada I phase of the Predynastic Period (circa 4000 B.C.E.–3500 B.C.E.), and the Set-animal is even found on a mace-head of the Scorpion King, a Protodynastic ruler.

A new theory^{[citation needed]} has it that the head of the Set animal is a representation of Mormyrus kannamae (Nile Mormyrid), which resides in the waters near Kom Ombo, one of the sites of a temple of Set, with the two square fins being what are normally interpreted as ears. However, it may be that part or all of the Set animal was based on the Salawa, a similarly mysterious canine creature, with forked tail and square ears, one member of which was claimed to have been found and killed in 1996 by the local population of a region of Upper Egypt. It may even be the case that Set was originally neither of these, but later became associated with one or both of them due to their similar appearance.

Conflict between Horus and Set

The myth of Set's conflict with Horus, Osiris and Isis appears in many Egyptian sources, including the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, the Shabaka Stone, inscriptions on the walls of the Horus temple at Edfu, and various papyrus sources. The Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 1 contains the legend known as The Contention of Horus and Set. Classical authors also recorded the story, notably Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride.

These myths generally portray Osiris as a wise king and bringer of civilization, happily married to his sister Isis. Set was his envious younger brother, and he killed and dismembered Osiris. Isis reassembled Osiris' corpse and another god (in some myths Thoth and in others Anubis) embalmed him. As the archetypal mummy, Osiris reigned over the Afterworld as judge of the dead.

Osiris' son Horus was conceived by Isis with Osiris' corpse, or in some versions, only with pieces of his corpse. Horus naturally became the enemy of Set, and many myths describe their conflicts. In some of these myths Set is portrayed as Horus' older brother rather than uncle. In one of their fights Set gouged out Horus's left eye, which represented the moon; perhaps this myth served to explain why the moon is less bright than the sun. Eventually however, using both cunning and strength, Horus vanquished and emasculated Set. The gods punished Set by forcing him to carry Osiris on his back, or by sacrificing him as a bull for their food. In some versions of the myth, Set is given dominion over the surrounding deserts as compensation for his loss of Egypt. Generally Set, as the enemy of the legitimate line of rulers, served as a symbol for disorder, evil and trickery.

The myth incorporated moral lessons for relationships between fathers and sons, older and younger brothers, and husbands and wives.

Perhaps it is also records of historical events. According to the Shabaka Stone, Geb divided Egypt into two halves, giving Upper Egypt (the desert south) to Set and Lower Egypt (the region of the delta in the north) to Horus, in order to end their feud. However, according to the stone, in a later judgment Geb gave all Egypt to Horus. Interpreting this myth as a historical record would lead one to believe that Lower Egypt (Horus' land) conquered Upper Egypt (Set's land); but in fact Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt. So the myth cannot be simply interpreted. Several theories exist to explain the discrepancy. For instance, since both Horus and Set were worshiped in Upper Egypt prior to unification, perhaps the myth reflects a struggle within Upper Egypt prior to unification, in which a Horus-worshipping group subjected a Set-worshiping group.

Regardless, once the two lands were united, Seth and Horus were often shown together crowning the new pharaohs, as a symbol of their power over both Lower and Upper Egypt. Queens of the 1st Dynasty bore the title "She Who Sees Horus and Set." The Pyramid Texts present the pharoah as a fusion of the two deities. Evidently, pharoahs believed that they balanced and reconciled competing cosmic principles. Eventually the dual-god Horus-Set appeared, combining features of both deities (as was common in Egyptian theology, the most familiar example being Amun-Re).

Later Egyptians interpreted the myth of the conflict between Set and Osiris/Horus as an analogy for the struggle between the desert (represented by Set) and the fertilizing floods of the Nile (Osiris/Horus).

Savior of Ra

As the Ogdoad system became more assimilated with the Ennead one, as a result of creeping increase of the identification of Atum as Ra, itself a result of the joining of Upper and Lower Egypt, Set's position in this became considered. With Horus as Ra's heir on Earth, Set, previously the chief god, for Lower Egypt, required an appropriate role as well, and so was identified as Ra's main hero, who fought Apep each night, during Ra's journey (as sun god) across the underworld.

He was thus often depicted standing on the prow of Ra's night barque spearing Apep in the form of a serpent, turtle, or other dangerous water animals. Surprisingly, in some Late Period representations, such as in the Persian Period temple at Hibis in the Khargah Oasis, Set was represented in this role with a falcon's head, taking on the guise of Horus, despite the fact that Set was usually considered in quite a different position with regard to heroism.

This assimilation also led to Anubis being displaced, in areas where he was worshipped, as ruler of the underworld, with his situation being explained by his being the son of Osiris. As Isis represented life, Anubis' mother was identified instead as Nephthys. This led to an explanation in which Nephthys, frustrated by Set's lack of sexual interest in her, disguised herself as the more attractive Isis, but failed to gain Set's attention because he was infertile. Osiris mistook Nephthys for Isis and they had conceived Anubis resulting in Anubis' birth. In some later texts, after Set lost the connection to the desert, and thus infertility, Anubis was identified as Set's son, as Set is Nephthys' husband.

If one looks in the mythology, Set has a great many wives, including some foreign Goddesses, and several children. Some of the most notable wives (beyond Nephthys/Nebet Het) are Neith (with whom he is said to have fathered Sobek), Amtcheret (by whom he is said to have fathered Upuat - though Upuat is also said to be a son of Aser/Osiris in some places), Tuaweret, Hetepsabet (one of the Hours, a feminine was-beast headed goddess who is variously described as wife or daughter of Set), and the two Canaanite deities Anat and Astarte, both of whom are equally skilled in love and war - two things which Set himself was famous for.

God of evil

Naturally, when, during the Second Intermediate Period the mysterious foreign Hyksos gained the rulership of Egypt, and ruled the Nile Delta, from Avaris, they chose Set, originally Lower Egypt's chief god, as their patron, and so Set became worshipped as the chief god once again. However, following this invasion, Egyptian attitudes towards foreigners could be best described as xenophobic, and eventually the Hyksos were deposed. During this period, Set (previously a hero), as the Hyksos' patron, came to embody all that the Egyptians disliked about the foreign rulers, and so he gradually absorbed the identities of all the previous evil gods, particularly Apep.

When the Legend of Osiris and Isis grew up, Set was consequently identified as the killer of Osiris in it, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces, dispersing them, so that he could not be resurrected. Interpreting the ears as fins, the head of the Set-animal resembles the Oxyrhynchus fish, and so it was said that as a final precaution, an Oxyrhynchus fish ate Osiris' penis.

Now that he had become the embodiment of evil, Set was consequently sometimes depicted as one of the creatures that the Egyptians most feared, crocodiles, and hippopotamus, and by the time of the New Kingdom, he was often associated with the villainous gods of other rising empires. One such case was Baal, an identification in which Set was described as being the consort of ‘Ashtart or ‘Anat, wife of Baal. Set was also identified by the Egyptians with the Hittite deity Teshub, who was a vicious storm god, as was Set.

The Greeks later linked Set with Typhon because both were evil forces, storm deities and sons of the Earth that attacked the main gods.

Some scholars hold that after Egypt's conquest by the Persian ruler Cambyses II, Set also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Achaemenid Persians, Ptolemaic dynasty, and Romans. Indeed, it was during the time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated. Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some distant locations he was still regarded as the heroic chief deity; for example, there was a temple dedicated to Set in the village of Mut al-Kharab, in the Dakhlah Oasis.

Trivia

Name

• Setekh: "the one of the wrappings"
• Sutekh: "the one from the South"
• the ending "tekh" has the word meaning "to drink too much". This has caused numerous assumptions and (historic) gibes.

Divine symbols

• No particular attribute in addition to the traditional was sceptre.
• Ankh

Colors

Red, the color of the desert and of destruction

Temples

• Seth was worshipped at the temple of Kom Ombo at Ombos (formerly Nubt), and Oxyrhynchus in upper Egypt, and also in part of the Faiyum area.
• The Seth oracle was consulted in the oases of Kharga and Dakhla in the south west of the country.

Use in fiction

• Although Set is never mentioned in The Mummy movie series by Stephen Sommers, an image of him can be seen during one scene in which Imhotep is followed by a hyponotized crowd. Here, he is represented as a man with the Set animal head.
• In the fantasy stories of Robert E. Howard about Conan the Barbarian, Set is the name of a serpent god worshipped in Stygia. Though Howard clearly took the name Set from the Egyptian deity, they are likely not the same god, as they have no similarities beyond their names. Still, many fans and authors attempt to identify one with the other.
• Sutekh (Set) appears as the villain in the Doctor Who serial Pyramids of Mars. It builds on the Seth as the enemy of Horus mythology(here desribed as both members of an alien race).
• Seth appears as a Goa'uld rebel villain who was the basis for the Set mythology on Earth in the Stargate TV series.[1]
• In the Marvel Universe, Seth was responsible for imprisoning the rest of the Egyptian gods since the death of Cleopatra, and became a major enemy of the Asgardians.
• Also in the Marvel Universe, Set was one of the aliases given to En Sabah Nur, who is also called Apocalypse.
• A clan of vampires called the Followers of Set, said to be founded by the Egyptian god Set, appear in White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games Vampire: The Dark Ages and Vampire: The Masquerade.
• In one episode of the animated series Samurai Jack, Jack is pursued by three demons called "The Minions of Set", while he seeks out a magic scarab talisman. The Minions strongly resemble the classic representation of Set, featuring elongated snouts and square ears.
• In Otherland by Tad Williams, Set is one of the avatars of an entity known as "The Other," an intelligence enslaved to be the master operating system of a very advanced virtual reality.
• Set is one of the main characters in the Roger Zelazny novel Creatures of Light and Darkness.
• The name of Seto Kaiba, a rival of the protagonist Yugi Mutou in the anime Yu-Gi-Oh!, is the Japanese phonetic equivalent of Set.
• Set was the villain in the game Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
• Set was one of the bosses in the Sega Saturn/PlayStation/PC game "Powerslave".
• In the fictional world of the Forgotten Realms, Set is a member of the Mulhorandi pantheon, a group of gods who strongly resemble ancient Egyptian deities. He seeks to overthrow the rule of Horus-Ra.
• In the cartoon Tutenstein on Discovery Kids, Seth appears as the villain who is trying to steal the Scepter of Was from the back-from-the-dead mummy of a young pharaoh.
• In 2 videogames developed by Atlus - Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2, Set is categorized into tarot class Tower and demon clan Death God.
• In the roguelike video game nethack, Set is a deity worshipped by chaotic humans, belonging to either the character class of Barbarian or Priest.
• Set, and several other Egyptian gods, were minions of the villain Scarab in the short-lived TV show Mummies Alive!
• In the Japanese anime Hellsing, Incognito invokes Set, who appears as a snake-like entity shrouded in light, in order to destroy The Hellsing Orginazation and England.
• In The Learning Company's The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures: Puzzle of the Pyramid, an evil archaeologist named Sir Alistair Loveless (voiced by Charles Martinet) attempts to "unleash the power of Set" in order to achieve world domination. Set, depicted as a nefarious entity of chaos, does not take too kindly to Loveless's plans and uses him to escape his imprisonment. However, before he can plunge the world into chaos, Set is defeated by the ClueFinders.
• Set is a playable god in the PC game Age of Mythology.
• There is a Petpet called Seti, resembling the Set animal, at Neopets.
• Sutekh was the main antagonist in the video game Nightshade (NES).
• 'The Desert Of A Set' is a song by the Swedish symphonic metal band: Therion, describing an apocalyptic scenario. The song concludes describing Set as a 'lion-serpent'.
• In the Manga/Anime series and video game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the antagonist Alessi/Alessy has a pink shadow Stand called Sethan, a reference to the god. Sethan has the ability to de-age those standing in its shadow, turning them into children and, if they remain too long, they may cease to exist entirely.
• A Bloodline of vampires called the Khaibit, -parent clan Mekhet- said to be founded by the Egyptian god Set, appears in White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing game Vampire: The Requiem.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Allen, James P. 2004. "Theology, Theodicy, Philosophy: Egypt." In Sarah Iles Johnston, ed. Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01517-7.
• Bickel, Susanne. 2004. "Myths and Sacred Narratives: Egypt." In Sarah Iles Johnston, ed. Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01517-7.
• Cohn, Norman. 1995. Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09088-9 (1999 paperback reprint).
• Kaper, Olaf Ernst. 1997. Temples and Gods in Roman Dakhlah: Studies in the Indigenous Cults of an Egyptian Oasis. Doctoral dissertation; Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Faculteit der Letteren.
• Kaper, Olaf Ernst. 1997. "The Statue of Penbast: On the Cult of Seth in the Dakhlah Oasis". In Egyptological Memoirs, Essays on ancient Egypt in Honour of Herman Te Velde, edited by Jacobus van Dijk. Egyptological Memoirs 1. Groningen: Styx Publications. 231–241, ISBN 90-5693-014-1.
• Lesko, Leonard H. 1987. "Seth." In The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, 2nd edition (2005) edited by Lindsay Jones. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson-Gale. ISBN 0-02-865733-0.
• Osing, Jürgen. 1985. "Seth in Dachla und Charga." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 41:229–233.
• Quirke, Stephen G. J. 1992. Ancient Egyptian Religion. New York: Dover Publications, inc., ISBN 0-486-27427-6 (1993 reprint).
• Stoyanov, Yuri. 2000. The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08253-3 (paperback).
• te Velde, Herman. 1977. Seth, God of Confusion: A Study of His Role in Egyptian Mythology and Religion. 2nd ed. Probleme der Ägyptologie 6. Leiden: E. J. Brill, ISBN 90-04-05402-2.
• HACHETTE, GODS OF ANCIENT EGYPT 9, SETH, ISSN 1741-2293 (includes a scientific SETH figurina)www.newgrounds.com

See also

• Legend of Osiris and Isis
• Temple of Set
• Setianism
• Libyan god of the desert, Ash

External links

• Le temple d'Hibis, oasis de Khargha: Hibis Temple representations of Sutekh as Horus
• SetSightings: An online archive of references to and images of Set
• Temple of Set

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