Read more about Horus at: Wikipedia Official Site: Public Domain Horus or Her, Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. These various forms may possibly be different manifestations of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner falcon or peregrine falcon, or as a man with a falcon head. The earliest recorded form of Horus is the tutelary deity of Nekhen in Upper Egypt, who is the first known national god, specifically related to the ruling pharaoh who in time came to be regarded as a manifestation of Horus in life and Osiris in death. The most commonly encountered family relationship describes Horus as the son of Isis and Osiris, and he plays a key role in the Osiris myth as Osiris's heir and the rival to Set, the murderer and brother of Osiris. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr.w "Falcon"; the original pronunciation has been reconstructed as in Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian, in later Middle Egyptian, and in Late Egyptian. Additional meanings are thought to have been "the distant one" or "one who is above, over". As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic varieties variously as or and was adopted into ancient Greek as HÅros (pronounced at the time as ). It also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric name forms such as Siese "son of Isis" and Harsiese "Horus, Son of Isis". |
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Horus