Petrie on Set

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One of the best known incongruities
is the position of Set. In the earliest times
Set and Horus appear as co-equal or twingods
(M.E.E., 329) closely associated. In
the VHIth Chapter of the Book of the
Dead the deceased, who is usually identified
with Osiris, states that he is identical with
Set : while, evidently after the antagonistic
view of Set and Horus had come in, a
sentence was added deprecating the wrath
of Horus. Now the possibility of such a
view of Set is explained by the earliest
history of Horus. Maspero states that Isis
was originally the Virgin-mother, dwelling
alone as a separate sole goddess at Buto,
from whom Horus was self -produced
(M.H.A., 131). The union of Osiris to
Isis, and his adoption of Horus, was a
later modification. Hence there was no
incongruity in the earliest view of Horus
and Set being honoured side by side. But
when Horus became the step-son of Osiris,
later the full son of Osiris himself, he was
bound to be antagonistic to Set. That Set
belongs to the Libyans or Westerns is probable,
because he is considered to have red
hair and a white skin ; in fact, the Tahennu,
or clear-race complexion. And it is probable
that the Osiris- 1 sis group is also of Libyan
origin, as we shall see later on.
Hence we may picture to ourselves the
gods Isis, Osiris, and Set, as the three divinities
of different tribes of Libyans. So long
as the Isis worshippers and Set worshippers
were in fraternity and tribal union, Horus
and Set were coequal gods. But when the
Osiris worshippers, with whom the Setites
were at feud, united with the Isiac tribe, and
Osiris was married to Isis, it became the
duty of Horus to fight Set. Accordingly
we see the war of Horus and Set throughout
Egypt, and garrisons of the followers of
Horus were established by the side of the
principal centres of Set worship to keep
down the Setite tribe. (See Masp., Etudes
ii. 324.) This tribal view of the religious
discordances and changes seems to be the
only rational cause that can be assigned.
That tribal wars existed no one would
venture to dispute, and that religious changes
would ensue from political changes we see
exemplified all through the history of Egypt.
The cause existed for such divergences, and
it was capable of producing these divergences
: while no other reasonable cause can
be assigned, and the gods are expressly
represented as fighting and vanquishing each
other's followers. We need hardly say that
the Syrian god Sutekh, which comes in
about the XlXth Dynasty, has no connection
with the primitive Egyptian god Set.