Horus or Her, Heru, Hor 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.[2] 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.[3] He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner
falcon or peregrine falcon, or as a man with a falcon head.[4]
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.[2] 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 of Osiris. In another tradition Hathor is
regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife.
Etymology[edit]
ḥr "Horus"
in hieroglyphs
Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr.w "Falcon"; the pronunciation has been
reconstructed as ħaːruw. Additional meanings are thought to have been "the distant one" or "one
who is above, over".[5] As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic varieties variously
as hoːɾ or ħoːɾ and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hōros (pronounced at the time
as hoːɾos). It also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric name forms such as Siese "son of
Isis" and Harsiese "Horus, Son of Isis".
Nekheny may have been another falcon god worshipped at Nekhen, city of the falcon, with whom
Horus was identified from early on.
Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette, dating from about the 31st century BC.
Horus and the pharaoh[edit]
The Pyramid Texts (c. 2400–2300 BC) describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as
both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, where
he was united with the other gods. New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on
earth in the form of new pharaohs.[6]
The lineage of Horus, the eventual product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been
a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative
of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life. By identifying Horus as the offspring of these forces,
then identifying him with Atum himself, and finally identifying the Pharaoh with Horus, the Pharaoh
theologically had dominion over all the world.
The notion of Horus as the pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the pharaoh
as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty.[7]
Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her
murdered husband Osiris, except his penis, which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by
a catfish,[8][9] or sometimes depicted as instead by a crab, and according to Plutarch's account used
her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a phallus[10] to conceive her son (older Egyptian
accounts have the penis of Osiris surviving).
After becoming pregnant with Horus, Isis fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her
brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son.[11] There Isis
bore a divine son, Horus.
