Monday, February 3, 2014

Horus's Creation Myth

The sky god, Geb, and earth goddess, Nut, created four children: Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nepthys. Osiris  was the oldest so he became the king of Egypt and married hes sister Isis. Set envied Osiris's power and had no control or command of anything. In retaliation he transformed himself into a vicious monster then attacked Osiris and killed him. He then took Osiris's body and cut it into many pieces and spread it across Egypt. Set became king of Egypt and ruled with his sister Nepthys. Nepthys took pity on Isis who cried everyday over her dead husband and together they set out to find all of Osiris's body parts to bring him back to life just long enough to have a child. When they completed this mission Isis used her magical powers to reincarnate Osiris.

Isis gave birth to Horus, the Hawk-God. As Horus grew to an adult he grew an opinion that he was the rightful King of Egypt and made case to the court of gods. After a long duration of arguing between the gods Set challenged Horus to a contest, where the winner became king. Set cheated in many contests and won but Isis disagreed how Set won and helped her son set a trap for Set. They snared Set but he begged to be released and Isis gave mercy to him. When Horus discovered this he raged against his mother loosing votes from the gods who had awarded one more contest to determine the official champion. Set choose to have a boat race where the boast were made of stones for the final match. Set took the top of a mountain and Horus made his of wood with an outside disguised by limestone plaster. Set sunk immediately, which riled Set so he formed into a hippopotamus and attacked Horus's boat. Horus fought Set but the gods quickly stopped the battle to prevent a killing. Instead they decided to ask Osiris who now ruled the underworld. He responded definably stating that Horus should be the rightful leader of Egypt. The gods were left in a toss up each Set and Horus presented pros and cons. To force a decision the sun and stars, who were allies with Osiris, diappeared. The gods finally concluded Horus should become the King of Egypt.

1 comment:

  1. This myth has very nice in depth details on the creation of Horus. Calrity of the creation and other aspects of the myth are clearly depicted. Very well done summary of the this creation myth.

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