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far above.” Horus was depicted as
a falcon with outstretched wings,
whose eyes were the sun and
moon. Thanks to his inability to
see on dark, moonless nights, the
god was also sometimes known
as Blind Horus.Quelling a rebellion
After Atum had created the world,
he faced a revolt from his children
or, according to some sources, from
the henchmen of Seth. As Atum
was growing old and was too frail
to fight the rebellious gods himself,
on the advice of Thoth, he named
Horus as his champion. Taking on
the form of a great winged disk,
Horus faced them in single combat.
His opponents turned themselves
into birds, fish, hippopotamuses,
and crocodiles, but Horus soon
caught and defeated them all.
A second battle followed. Seth
plucked out Horus’s left eye, the
moon, and Horus tore off Seth’s
testicles. In his battle rage—andtemporarily blinded without the
moon’s light—Horus not only
defeated the rebels, but also cut off
the heads of many gods loyal to
Atum. The other gods fled, and in
the chaos the solar barque came to
a halt as one of the four pillars that
held up the sky fell into the sea.
The universe was about to collapse.Horus dies and is reborn
Osiris stepped into the breach to
restore order, and the humiliated
Seth was forced to carry him on his
back. Osiris then brought Seth’s
testicles back to him and restored
the eye of Horus, which became
a powerful symbol of wholeness,
protection, strength, and perfection.
Horus, however, was too weakened
by his wounds, and after giving his
eye to Osiris, he died. Osiris used
the eye to rebalance the universe
and give the gods back their heads.
After their defeat at the hands
of Horus, Atum called the rebels
before him and swallowed them.
Inside his stomach, the gods
quarreled and killed one another.THE CREATION AND THE FIRST GODS
The Eye of Horus, personified as the
goddess Wedjat, was often used to
protect against danger in the afterlife.
This bracelet is from the tomb of the
pharaoh Shoshenq (9th century bce).This “death” of the gods did not
cause their extinction; instead,
they carried on much as before.
Horus was the only god who died
during the revolt, and his divine
essence was incorporated in Osiris
as “Horus who is in Osiris.” This
enabled him to be reborn as Horus,
the child of Isis and Osiris. For this
reason, the first Horus is sometimes
known as the Elder Horus, but his
miraculous rebirth means that the
two gods are, in fact, one and the
same deity. Horus, son of Isis and
Osiris, later died when stung by
a scorpion, but was resurrected
by his mother’s magic.Hathor terrorizes humans
Just as the gods had earlier rebelled
against the authority of Atum, so,
too, did humankind. To punish
these new insurgents, Atum sent
down his right eye, the goddess
Hathor, in her form as a lioness, in
which she was called Sekhmet.
His intention was to alarm and
punish the ungrateful humans and
reduce their numbers, but onceHorus, the Youthful One,
cometh in peace, and he
hath made manifest on
his journey deeds of
very great might.
Thoth
Anonymous inscription on the
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Sekhmet had tasted blood, she
lost control. Lusting for more, she
killed everyone she found, wading
through their gory remains.
At nightfall, in a bid to placate
Sekhmet, Ra mixed red ochre into
barley beer so that it looked like
blood. He then poured 7,000 jugs of
the liquid over the land where she
was intent on her killing spree. At
dawn, Sekhmet saw the “blood”
and voraciously lapped it all up.
She became so drunk that she fell
asleep for three days; when she
awoke, her bloodlust had passed,ANCIENT EGYPT AND AFRICA
A sistrum, a sacred rattle in the shape
of an ankh—the symbol of life—was
played to worship Hathor. This sistrum
handle (c. 664–525 bce) depicts the
horned head of the cow goddess.and the remaining humans were
spared. From then on, Hathor—
in her lioness form as Sekhmet—
became associated with an annual
festival that celebrated the survival
of humanity. During the festivities,
people drank beer mixed with
pomegranate juice.A complex goddess
Atum valued the strength of
Hathor’s fiery nature and wanted
her close by him to protect him.
When she returned to him, the
creator god is said to have
welcomed her back as “Beautiful
One,” which was one of the
goddess’s many names.
A highly popular deity and
worshipped throughout Egyptian
society, Hathor was accorded
multiple roles. She was sometimes
worshipped as the wife of Horus
and mother of Ihy, a child god of
music. She was the goddess of
love, beauty, dance, pleasure, and,
most significantly, procreation andEgyptian trinity
Differing creation myths evolved
in ancient Egypt’s major cities—
Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis,
and Thebes. A black stone tablet
from Memphis, ground down
almost to illegibility by its use as
a millstone, names the creator as
Ptah, a limitless almighty divinity.
Called the “giver of life at will,”
he conceived all creation in hisheart and gave it form by
naming it. At Thebes, the
“hidden god” Amun was the
creator god, in the form of the
serpent Kematef. Elsewhere, it
was Atum, “the all,” who was
also Ra, the sun god.
A hymn from the reign of
Ramesses II (1279–1213 bce)
declares that “God is three gods
above all—Amun, Ra, and Ptah.
His nature as Amun is hidden;
he cannot be known. He is Ra in
his features, and Ptah in his
body.” The words suggest that
all three were viewed as aspects
of the same creator god.Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen,
was worshipped in Memphis, one of
Egypt’s great cities. Ptah was said to
have shaped the physical world.motherhood. Women visited her
shrine to pray for children. In
contrast to her lioness aspect,
Hathor was usually represented
as a cow. Her cult, probably rooted
in early fertility rites, was said to
predate the dynastic period. People
also believed that Hathor could help
souls to be reborn in the afterlife. ■I [Amun] created every man
identical with his neighbor;
I did not order them to
commit perversion; it is
their hearts that violated
what I said.
Coffin TextsUS_266-271_Creation_Egypt.indd 271 05/12/17 4:16 pm