50 Fun Facts About Horus

Egyptologists think the bird depicted as Horus was most likely a peregrine or which other species?

His name in hieroglyphs simply means 'Falcon', and he was shown either as the bird itself or as a man with its head.

In the most common tradition, Horus is the son of which divine couple?

He plays the key role in the great myth as his father's heir and the rival of the uncle who murdered him.

Which god murdered Horus's father and fought his nephew for the throne of Egypt?

He was the god of deserts, storms and disorder, usually shown as a mysterious beast that no one has identified.

According to Egyptian belief, Horus's right eye was the sun. What was his left eye?

They were said to cross the sky as he flew over it in falcon form.

What was the ancient Egyptian word for the Eye of Horus symbol?

From the New Kingdom the term meant the 'whole' or 'uninjured' eye, and it was one of the most common amulet designs of all.

Which Greek god did the Egyptians equate with Horus, according to Claudius Aelianus?

Plutarch specified that the equivalent was really 'Horus the Elder', a primordial form distinct from the child god.

The earliest recorded form of Horus was the tutelary deity of which Upper Egyptian city, later called Hierakonpolis by the Greeks?

The Greek name means 'City of Falcons', and the Narmer Palette was found there.

Which ancient funerary writings of about 2400 to 2300 BC first describe the pharaoh as Horus in life and Osiris in death?

Each new pharaoh was seen as a fresh incarnation of Horus succeeding the dead king on earth.

Where did the pregnant Isis flee to hide from Set before giving birth to Horus?

She had to protect the growing child from Set, snakes, scorpions and ordinary illness.

In one tale, which part of Horus's dismembered father was never recovered because a fish had eaten it?

Isis fashioned a replacement by magic to conceive her son; older Egyptian versions have the organ survive.

In the struggle between the two rival gods, Horus lost an eye. What did his opponent lose?

The tale of The Contendings of Horus and Seth was used to explain why the moon is dimmer than the sun.

In The Contendings, Horus (or Isis) spread his semen on which food, Set's favourite, to trick him?

When the gods called each rival's semen forth, Set's answered from the river and Horus's from inside Set.

How did Horus win the vessel race that finally decided the contest with Set?

Set's boat, made of real stone, sank; the gods had grown tired of more than eighty years of fighting.

For roughly how long had the gods endured the fighting between Horus and Set before the boat race?

After his defeat Set stepped down and officially handed Horus the throne.

In the Memphite Theology, which god first divides the realm between Horus and Set and then reverses himself, giving it all to Horus?

That peaceable version reconciles the two and resolves the dualities they represent into a united whole.

Which Dublin-held 20th Dynasty manuscript preserves The Contendings of Horus and Seth?

It dates to the reign of Ramesses V and probably came from a scribe's private collection, alongside love songs.

Which god is most often credited with healing or restoring the eye that Set destroyed?

Horus then offered the healed eye to his dead father, and its power sustained him in the afterlife.

In one account, Hathor filled Horus's empty eye sockets with the milk of which animal?

Later temple texts have Thoth and fourteen other gods fill the eye, standing for the fifteen days from new moon to full.

The waxing and waning of which heavenly body was likened to the injury and restoration of the Eye of Horus?

Egyptologist Rolf Krauss has argued the eye originally stood for Venus as morning and evening star.

Egyptologists long believed hieroglyphs for pieces of the Eye of Horus stood for what in Egyptian mathematics?

That hypothesis has since been challenged.

The Eye of Horus is mentioned in roughly what share of the utterances in Egypt's oldest funerary writings, carved in late Old Kingdom pyramids?

In those texts Set steals the eye, sometimes tramples and eats it, and Horus takes it back by force.

Where did Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors often paint the Eye of Horus?

Seven bracelets on the mummy of Shoshenq II also carry the eye as their central element, to protect the king in the afterlife.

What was the Greek name for Horus the Child, Heru-pa-khered?

Greeks and Romans mistook his finger-to-mouth pose, an Egyptian sign of childhood, for a gesture of silence and made him god of secrets.

How is Horus the Child typically portrayed?

He also wears the sidelock of youth and often the united crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Which form of the god, worshipped at Letopolis, did the Greeks call Haroeris?

He was sometimes shown as a hieracosphinx, a falcon-headed lion, and titled 'foremost of the two eyes'.

Which famous monument was believed to have been inspired by Har-em-akhet, 'Horus in the Horizon'?

That form of Horus stood for the dawn and was often shown as a sphinx with a human head, or a lion with a falcon's head.

The winged sun found atop temple pylons throughout Egypt was the symbol of Horus of which town?

That form of the god was Heru-Behdeti, and the winged disc stood for divinity, royalty and power.

The Temple of Horus at Edfu, one of Egypt's best preserved, was built by which dynasty between 237 and 57 BC?

Work began under Ptolemy III Euergetes on 23 August 237 BC and finished under Ptolemy XII Auletes.

To what depth had the Temple of Edfu been buried in sand and Nile silt by the time Europeans saw it in 1798?

Locals had built houses on top of it, and only the tops of the pylons showed.

By what Latin name was the city of Edfu known, after Horus's identification with a Greek god?

Its temple walls preserve scenes of the sacred drama of the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth.

At the annual Festival of Victory at Edfu, the king played Horus and struck which animal, standing in for his enemy, with a harpoon?

Most years a priest probably stood in for the king and a model for the beast.

The Horus name, the oldest royal crest, was written inside a rectangular palace-facade frame called what?

It predates the better-known cartouche by four dynasties and five to seven hundred years.

The Horus name belongs to which set of royal titles?

Modern Egyptologists increasingly prefer a more neutral term, since not every ruler put the falcon on top of the frame.

In a few cases, which god's animal replaced the usual falcon atop a king's name-frame?

That showed which celestial patron the ruler chose to claim.

The four sons of Horus were linked with what funerary objects?

Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef and Qebehsenuef guarded the organs removed during mummification.

Which of the four sons of Horus was portrayed with a baboon's head?

Imsety kept a human head, Duamutef became a jackal and Qebehsenuef took a bird of prey's head.

Which organ did Qebehsenuef, the bird-headed son of Horus, most commonly protect?

Imsety usually had the liver, Hapy the lungs and Duamutef the stomach, though the pattern varied.

The name of the goddess Hathor literally means what?

She was regarded as the mother or consort of Horus, and the 'house' may be the sky he lives in or the womb he came from.

Ra was sometimes merged with Horus under which combined name, meaning 'Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons'?

Ra too was shown as a bird of prey; when Amun rose in the New Kingdom he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra.

In one myth, Horus beheads his mother Isis, and she replaces her head with that of which animal?

The story explains the cow-horn headdress that Isis borrowed from Hathor.

Which 4th-century Roman author mentioned an Egyptian festival of Horus held at the winter solstice, unattested in Egyptian sources?

Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis mentions a similar solstice festival in his Panarion.

Which actor played Horus in the 2016 fantasy film Gods of Egypt?

His Horus helps a mortal thief named Bek stop Set and reclaim his throne.

In Rick Riordan's Egyptian trilogy, which teenage character hosts the spirit of Horus after it is released in the British Museum?

Horus speaks to him throughout the trilogy, offering advice and wisdom.

Which Marvel series cast Declan Hannigan as Horus in 2022?

He also appears as a Warrior-class god titled 'The Rightful Heir' in the game Smite.

What does the hieroglyphic writing of Horus's name, ḥr.w, literally mean?

Other suggested meanings are 'the distant one' or 'one who is above', and the name reached Greek as Hōros.

Besides the sidelock of youth, what does Horus the Child usually wear in art?

He personifies the rising sun's earliest light, and the Greeks knew this form as Harpocrates.

Horus the Elder was sometimes shown as a hieracosphinx, a bird-headed what?

He was also given the title Kemwer, 'the great black one', and had cult centres at Kom Ombo and Qus.

Her-iunmutef, 'Horus, Pillar of His Mother', was depicted as a priest wearing what over his torso?

Other forms include Har-Nedj-Hef, protector of his father Osiris, and Her-sema-tawy, uniter of the Two Lands.

Hor-imy-shenut was a form of Horus with the body of which animal?

Herui, the 'double falcon', was another local form, worshipped as god of the fifth nome of Upper Egypt at Coptos.

The first known depiction of Harpocrates is on a stele from Mendes erected under which king?

Harpocrates began as a duplicate of the child-god Khonsu-pa-khered, created by the Theban priesthood to give Osiris and Isis a child figure.