Seth

God of the desert, storm and violence

Cult Center: Ombos.

Attributes: Early in Egyptian history, Seth is spoken of in terms of reverence as the god of wind and storms. He was even known as the Lord of Upper Egypt. Horus being the Lord of Lower Egypt. It was Seth who stood in the front of the solar barque to defended the sun god Ra from his most dangerous foe, the serpent Apep. At this time, he seems to have had no conflicts with the cults of Isis or Osiris. In fact, he was part of the same family of gods, and married to his twin sister, Nephthys.

However, it appears the followers of Seth may have resisted the followers of Horus and the First Dynasty pharaoh, Menes, when he united Upper and Lower Egypt. This struggle for control of Egypt seems to be reflected in the mythology. At this point, Seth is portrayed as questioning the authority of his brother, Osiris. The Osiris cults took this opportunity to discredit the followers of Seth; he was now considered to be Osiris' evil brother. And the story was told that Seth was evil since birth, because he ripped himself from his mother's womb by tearing through her side. In the Osiris legends, it is Seth who tricks and murders Osiris. He is also the antagonist of Horus. By the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, Seth was the embodiment of evil. He was depicted with red eyes and hair. The ancient Egyptians beleived red represented evil.

Seth (or Set) is shown with an animal's head with a long curved pointed snout, slanting eyes, and square-tipped ears. Sometimes he has a forked tail. No one seems to know what the animal is. Aardvark, antelope, ass, camel, fennec, giraffe, greyhound, jackal, jerboa, long-snouted mouse, okapi, oryx and pig have all been suggested! Seth was the God of the desert, storm and violence, which are all enemies of the fertile, prosperous, narrow valley of the Nile. His sceptre has his head of top and his tail at the other end. Several other gods seem to carry this sceptre as well.

Seth had killed Osiris by tricking him into a coffin, which he threw into the Nile. When Osiris' wife Isis heard about this, she started searching desperately for her husband's body, to bury it properly. She asked everyone she met and finally some children told her where it was. Isis mourned for her dead husband. Then she hid the body, while she went back to look after her son Horus, still a baby. Seth was terrified that Isis might be able to bring Osiris back from the dead, since she was a great magician. So Seth found where she had hidden the body and cut it into pieces, which he scattered up and down the Nile. Now Isis had to find all the scattered pieces of Osiris. Whenever she found a piece, she buried it there and built a shrine. This means that there are lots of places in Egypt where Osiris was buried! Osiris himself became the King of the Dead, and all Egyptians hoped they would join him after death.

Representation: Man with the head of an unknown animal. Some times he takes the form of a crocodile. He is represented as a hippopotamus or a black pig in his battles with Horus.

Relations: Son of Geb and Nut. Brother of Isis, Nephthys, and Osiris. The husband of Nephthys or sometimes the husband of Taurt.

Copyright © 2010 Tim Stouse
Last modified: December 10, 2010

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