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God Horus identifies, both in Egypt and Nubia, with various local
divinities:
as a solar divinity he is Haroeris, Harakhthe, Harmakis, Horo of Behedet.
As Isis’s son he is Arpocrate (child Horus), Harsiesi, (Isis’s son) Harendotef
(Horus his father’s avenger).
Horus is above all the dynastic god, he is “he who sits on his father Osiris’s
throne and in whom every living sovereign identifies himself”. The origin of
this god is obscure, because there were many sanctuaries and in each one of them
he had a different name. It seems that at the beginning he existed under the
shape of a falcon, that in the texts of the Ancient Reign was identified with
the “Great God” and considered God of the sky and so assimilated to an animal
that lived in the sky. Parallel to the political union of Egypt, there was also
a union of the Gods and Horus was identified with Ra in the form of Ra-Hrakhte (Horus
of the horizon) represented in the tinita epoch by a man with the head of a
falcon, that seems was Horus of Letopolis (II nomos of the Delta) called Hor
Khenti irti “Horo who presides over two eyes, that are the sun and the moon”.
In Behedet (Damanhur of today, in the XVII nomos of the Delta) we find Horus
called the Ancient ( or the Great) Horoeris confused with Horus of Chemmis
called the Young (or the child) Arpocrate.
This Horus, Isis’s and Osiris’s son, had a determining role in the fight
between Seth and Osiris.
An old legend that is on the Texts of the Pyramids, tells that Isis, under the shape of a vulture alighted on
Osiris’s body, conceived Horus and brought him
up to avenge his father’s death.
Horus, when he was an adult, provoked Seth, who reacted tearing off one of his
eyes during a battle, but Horus got it back, he defeated Seth and he evirated
him. At this point the God’s assembly settled Horus on his father’s throne,
while Seth was condemned to carry Osiris eternally.
When Egypt was divided again at the end of the pre-dynastic period, Horus
remained the official divinity of Upper Egypt, in Nekhem (Hierakonpolis). In
Upper Egypt there was another sanctuary dedicated to Horus, in Edfu.
The pharaoh was considered Horo’s incarnation and this legitimised his reign.
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