—— ADRIEN, they/it/xe. transmasc nonbinary gay. asian, 20↑. the other stuff aren't as important
—— i mainly post about ancient egypt (and ennead), but other content you might see include ace attorney, bg3, dunmeshi, hermitcraft, hetalia, hsr, jjba, pokemon, sdv, the sims
—— reblog and likespam heavy! i have my opinions and i like to talk about them, especially concerning my special interests. I CONSUME MY CONTENT CRITICALLY! if you have any issues with my interests, feel free to block. i love any and all ❤️ 🔄 💬
—— no real dnfi/dni, you know what to expect. just be respectful to me and not be an unreasonable person
I actually finished that drawing of Ra and Wedjet from like. A month ago
YEAAHHHHHH
ANyways, small rant about the context of the drawing for all those who care; No, it's NOT Ra shielding his eyes from the sun, WHY would he do that
It's him and Wadjet (the giant snake )) making their way through the sandstorms of the Duat! It's said that Wadjet can serve as a type of umbrella/ shield for Ra with her hood whenever they go to the Duat together !!!!
And I also really wanted to practice drawing snakes/ specifically king cobras since those have been my favorite type of snake since I was like five
Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost
The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction
The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity
We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either
Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender
The gods didn’t actually have animal heads
Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)
The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous
Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”
The carvings at Abydos aren’t modern machines but recarvings over old carvings. Sure they look like them but if you can read hieroglyphs and know that Ramesses II will even usurp the carvings of his own father just to be a little shit
‘No soot on the ceilings and walls of the Dendera temple!’ is actually because of extensive restoration works and not because Egyptians were in on shit like Baghdad “batteries”
While the Egyptians were fine-ass astronomers they didn’t align any of their enormous and/or important buildings to modern star constellations, because constellations look very different now than they did ~5000 years ago
The pyramid is the simplest, sturdiest shape with which to build and many different cultures discovered this in their own time. There were never any weird fish humans/aliens involved
I can’t believe I forgot my favourite Hill to Die On
Seth was not the god of “evil”, and despite his chaos providing a foil to order, he wasn’t completely villified until very late in Egyptian history, when he became associated with despised foreign enemies
Hats off to the few of you who’re reblogging this with tags saying you’re going to check my claims later. You make me not entirely despair of this hellhole.
Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:
Lehner, M., The Complete Pyramids
Wilkinson, R. H., The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt
Hornung, E., The One and the Many: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt
Dunand, F. & Zivie-Coche, C., Gods and Men in Egypt
Kemp, B., Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization
Bard, K., An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
Stevenson Smith, W., The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt
Kitchen, K. A., The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt
Sweeney, D., Sex and Gender (in Ancient Egypt)
McDowell, A. G., Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs
[ Pharaohs and their Favorite Gods - Neferkare Neby ]
The existence of Egypt’s Seventh Dynasty and its pharaohs is still debated among scholars. Although we have some traces that hint at their existence, most of these rulers remain shrouded in mystery. Among them, Neferkare Neby appears to be the most attested.
What stands out is that, despite knowing almost nothing about his life - just like the rest of this probably fictitious dynasty - we can still read the name of Ra within his own.
This suggests that the solar cult, so closely tied to royalty, continued to hold significance even during this mysterious time, likely still influenced by the traditions of the Old Kingdom.
A cylinder scarab seal inscribed with “Neferkare Neby, son of Ra” reminds us that the cult of the sun god still shone, even as Egypt entered one of its darkest ages: the so called "First Intermediate Period".
"Typhon became associated with the Egyptian Set after the New Kingdom fell to foreign invaders during the 8th century BCE. Since Set is the god of all things foreign to Egypt, He was blamed for these invasions as well as for the final dissolution of Pharaonic power. They ceased to believe in Him as the Savior of Ra and equated Him with Apep. This led to one of the earliest recorded cases of blood libel, in which Alexandrian Jews were accused of practicing “onolatry” (donkey worship), poisoning wells, and murdering people in their religious rituals. Even Yahweh Himself was equated with Set during this period.
Herodotus started writing about the Egyptians in the 5th century BCE. When Herodotus applied the concept of interpretatio graecia to the Egyptian pantheon he identified this fallacious Set/Apep hybrid with the Typhon of his own culture. Greco-Egyptian syncretists started calling Seth-Typhon, and people who continued to worship Him became known as Typhonians. This was a term of hostile derision, and classical Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used it in much the same way that Christians continue to use the terms “devil worshiper” today."
Hey Ava! Kinda curious to know what you think about this? Found it as a reply to a reddit thread asking why Set was compared to Typhoon instead of Apep. Best wishes and love <3
Hi! Most of what this person is saying is true as far as I know, except for the idea that that Typhonian = devil worshipper. What it actually means is a bit different (and honestly a lot more interesting than that.)
You're asking me about quite a few things here, so this post is going to be pretty long. Strap in.
So, yes, at the very end of the Late period going into the Greco-Roman period, the view of Set in Egypt seems to have become very unfavourable, much more unfavourable than in any other time period. He is almost exclusively portrayed as an enemy. I guess you could say that he takes on a much more "overarching antagonist" kind of role, similar to Apophis, since places like the Temple of Horus at Edfu and the Book of Victory over Set even talk about him attacking Ra, something he never did before this. His role as a personification of evil that needs to be defeated is focused on, and his role protecting from evil is forgotten.
(I don't think we can say it was entirely forgotten, though. Some people claim that positive depictions of him were "banned," but you can still see them in some places, so it's unclear exactly how harsh the stigma against him was.)
They also seem to have become uncomfortable with his special animal, because they start depicting him as a wild donkey instead. Except, they're kind of bad at drawing donkeys, so he often ends up looking like the most adorable fennec fox.
(This is a drawing from the Jumilhac Papyrus. Set, who has the head of what is supposed to be a donkey but does not look like one at all, is imprisoned upside down in a fishing basket with his hands tied behind his back.)
Free my Lord! You can't punish him for crimes if he committed them with that cute face!
But! This change did not happen in all of Egypt! Only in the parts on the shore of the Nile (so, most of Egypt, but still). In the oasis towns in Egypt's desert, Set was always really popular, and he remained popular there even after the rest of Egypt got fed up with him. There, they still show him as the slayer of Apophis and all his other positive roles.
The oases also got rid of his animal, but they replaced it with a falcon instead. (He knows the rest of Egypt is mad at him, so he's pretending to be Horus until they calm down /joke.) They also often show him together with Nephthys, which is cute.
The differences between these two places can be pretty stark (as shown by some of my favourite images from both):
Some of these images are pretty low quality, sorry.
The first is a carving of pharaoh Ptolemy VIII from the temple of Horus at Edfu. He's spearing Set in the form of a very tiny donkey beneath him.
The second is a tracing of a carving from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. Horus is presenting Set as a prisoner to Osiris. Set has the body of a man and the head of a donkey, and he's been tied to a post, with his stomach stuck full of knives. —et tu, Hor-te?—
On the other hand, you have these pictures from the desert.
The first is a carving from the Temple of Hibis, from the Late Period. Set has a falcon head, a double crown, blue skin, and big colourful wings. He's spearing a big red snake beneath him.
The second is a relief from the temple of Deir El-hagar, from the Roman period. Set and Nepthys are both seated on thrones together, receiving an offering from roman emperor Titus (who isn't in the picture, sorry). Set has a double crown with ram's horns, and Nephthys has a plumed crown. He also has the head of a falcon, once again.
Like I said though, his positive aspects didn't completely disappear in the Nile Valley. Here's a weird outlier: A carving from the temple at Edfu of two Sets, both with the head of his old special animal, killing a big snake together. One of them is standing on the snake's back wielding a knife, and the other is grabbing it by the throat.
(Oh, also: the reason I know about all these images is because of a dissertation called Deconstructing the Iconography of Seth, where the author finds as many images of Set as possible and compares them to each other. It's a really interesting read if you want to see how Set's image changed overtime.)
As for why this happened... well, one theory, like that person said is that they became bitter towards him because of his association with foreign invaders. Meanwhile, the oasis towns, which were always kind of "foreign" from the rest of Egypt, kept on liking him. I've also seen it theorized that this is because of a change in ideology, that after this period the Egyptians weren't able to conceive of there being positive aspects to chaos anymore.
And, as for that thing they said about people thinking Set was the Jewish God: So, this is something I've heard a lot. Apparently it was an extension of how the Egyptians identified many important gods from foreign pantheons with Set (most notably, they thought that Baal was basically Palestinian Set, although that was back in the New Kingdom so the association was a lot more positive.) In the Greco-Roman period, when there was a large community of Jews in Alexandria, they apparently also identified their god with Set (or "Typhon," at that point). I don't really know that much about this, though.
That thing they said about Typhonians isn't right though, and the truth is actually much more interesting:
The Egyptian name for them is the shemsu Sutekh, the "followers of Set." And by "Followers of Set" they don't mean people who worship Set, but people who take after him. Followers of Set have all sorts of Set-like traits: They're are loud, they're aggressive, they don't conform to social norms (apparently, even if a follower of Set is a nobleman, he will still behave like a peasant), they're likely to commit crimes like adultery, and they have red hair. They look like Set, they talk like Set, and they act like Set.
The term is also used to distinguish people who will reach the afterlife from the people who won't. In funerary texts, the blessed dead who make it to the afterlife are called "Followers of Horus," while the wicked dead who are annihilated trying to get there are called "Followers of Set."
The idea isn't just around in the Late period either, the oldest sources that mention them might be from the Middle Kingdom. Which is fascinating to me, because the Middle Kingdom is also when people first started to believe that Set slays Apophis, a role where all his aggressiveness and other Sethian traits are clearly used as a good thing!
I have so many tantalizing unanswered questions about these guys. What was the relationship between them and people who actually worshipped Set? Was this a common belief throughout Egypt, or just in certain places? Was it believed they were always bad, or could they sometimes be good and helpful, like Set was? Because some people (specifically certain New Kingdom pharaohs) really liked to compare themselves to Set and call themselves "the likeness of Set" as a compliment, so clearly being like him wasn't always bad.
(Fun fact about Rameses the Great by the way: His mummy has dyed red hair, seemingly on purpose (like, not just because of something that happened during the embalming process), so, what does that mean?)
Unfortunately, we don't know a lot about the Followers of Set so I will probably never get answers to most of these questions. (Until I use necromancy to resurrect Rameses the Great and ask him, of course! /joke.)
After two years of learning Egyptian, my vocabulary of insults in that language is still embarrassingly weak. The only ones I know are:
Neḥa-ḥer, "horrible of face," which I once saw translated as "stinky-face" and therefore can't take seriously
Ḥemty-nekeku, which feels like a slur so I don't want to use it
Kat, which literally means "vagina" but is used to mean slut, and which I don't like for similar reasons to the above.
Wenemu butef, "One who eats what he detests," which is code for "one who drinks his own piss." (Drinking piss and eating shit is a common theme in Egyptian expressions. They thought it was the most unnatural and grossest thing you could do, so it means someone who is morally repugnant and defies ma'at.)
On second thought, this last one's pretty good actually.
A brief compilation of things I’ve seen people Say Online about this story but have no idea where they’re getting it from:
The reason Isis stole Ra’s name was to cure Horus when he was sick (not in the story anywhere)
The reason she stole his name was so Osiris could be king (also not in the story)
Isis forced Ra to leave earth after stealing his name? (not in the story)
There is some kind of longstanding grudge between Isis and Ra because of this (where?)
I feel like there's a lot of pop culture perceptions of this story floating around that are based on people trying to connect it to the rest of the mythology as some kind of bigger narrative, like trying to connect it to her love for Osiris or to the story of Ra leaving earth, even though it seems to be more of a one off kind of story that's disconnected from the rest of the mythology, like Set and the Seed Goddess.
Gonna be honest I hard disagree with the idea with the idea that Set has a different, more evil personality in the Osiris myth than he does when he's killing Apophis or in a dualistic relationship with Horus. I think he's the same dude the whole time and his personality just comes off better at some times than others.
Dualism with Horus: Horus and Set disagree with each other and fight (incredibly violently) for a long time before they finally reconcile with each other and work together. Horus is order, Set is chaos, and their reconciliation is the way those two concepts must be reconciled with each other in order to achieve balance. The Egyptians believed that this cycle repeats, and each new king must reconcile Horus and Set within himself to achieve balance.
Murder of Osiris: Set kills Osiris, attempts to prevent his proper burial, and must be defeated so Osiris can reach the afterlife. Set is a disturbing force who throws things out of order by killing Osiris. The Egyptians also saw this as a cycle that repeats, any time an old king (or anyone, really) dies, he is like Osiris and Set must be prevented from harming him. However, after his death a new order is created, with Horus as the king and Osiris as the lord of the dead in the underworld. An often overlooked detail is that Horus is said to force Set to carry Osiris to the underworld. Set disturbs order, but he’s also necessary to create new order.
Slaying Apophis: Ra meets Apophis in the underworld when he’s all old and stuff, and needs to be reborn to be young and strong again. But, in order to be reborn, he runs the risk of dying/being completely obliterated if Apophis swallows him. Set, using his loud, violent, destructive nature, protects Ra from Apophis. Order weakens over time and needs to be reborn (literally as Khepri, “the evolver”) in order to be strong again. Set, and his disorderly nature, allow this to happen.
Same dude! Same idea expressed in different ways over time!
I have one question, if that is okay. What variant would you recommend, if there even is one, of "egyptian" name of Osiris?
My native language is not english and most information about egyptology is not on it as well, so I heavily rely on english sources. With that, I, sometimes, don't get correct pronunciation just from reading. One person, who is not very kind or nice, harshly told me, that the way I was saying Osiris's egyptian name was wrong. I was using variant "Wesir", which I pronounced the way I saw it and with past experience of english, like first two letters as in the word "went". She, the person, told me that all of this is wrong, there is no such god with the name Wesir and even the spelling of Wesir is read as Usir (is it?). So, if it's not hard, can you say, which of the variants of Osiris's egyptian names is most correct and universal, and, also, how to correctly pronounce it?
Thank you.
Hi Anon!
In my experience, the most widely used variant of Osiris's Egyptian name is "Usir." However, calling him "Wesir" is also totally correct, because the w in Egyptian transliterations can be pronounced as either a U vowel or a W consonant. So saying wsir as "Usir" or "Wesir" is right either way.
I would pronounce Usir as either oo-seer or oo-sir, and Wesir as either weh-seer or weh-sir (like the first two letters of the word went, as you did) but in my experience nobody (nobody who knows what they're doing at least) really cares how you pronounce the vowels in Egyptian words, because it's not like they're accurate anyway.
Osiris specifically is also a difficult god for this, because his name is a bit of a mystery. We aren't exactly sure what the consonants are, or what the transliteration of it should be.
His name is written with a throne sign and an eye sign. The eye sign represents the sounds ir, but it's unclear what the seat sign represents. It was decided early on that it should be read as ws (hence: wsir), but people keep challenging that. There are arguments that it should be Asir or isir instead.
As for which one I think is right... um, IDK? The evidence we have to go on for this is pretty sparse, and basically all arguments end up feeling like kind of a reach in my opinion.
There are no other words in Egyptian that use the throne sign for ws, but the only other word that seems to use it for As or is is Isis's name. (The two names seem to be related like that, which is cute. But it's also unhelpful.)
(Osiris's and Isis's names together, BTW <3)
TL;DR: It's complicated. Usir is the most widely used, and also anyone who corrects your pronunciation like that is being a needless little pedant.
