Eye of Horus Story
Many people are always thinking about this eye of protection, where it come from? what’s the meaning of it? Learn everything about the Eye of Horus Story and facts.
The ancient Egyptian god of the sky was said to have the sun in his right eye and the moon in his left eye, according to several Egyptian scriptures. The crimson and white crowns of Egypt were occasionally associated with the solar and lunar eyes, respectively.
Eye of Horus and Eye of Ra
Some sources treat the Eye of Horus as if it were interchangeable with the Eye of Ra; which is an extension of the solar deity Ra’s might and is frequently personified as a deity in other contexts. According to Egyptologist Richard H. Wilkinson, the two eyes of Horus evolved into the lunar Eye of Horus and the solar Eye of Ra. Other Egyptologists, on the other hand, argue that no article clearly equates the eyes of Horus with the sun and moon till the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC); Rolf Krauss claims that the Eye of Horus was first represented Venus as the morning and evening star and that the moon was only later associated with it.
Katja Goebs claims that the mythology surrounding the Eye of Horus and the Eye of Ra share a common mytheme, or core element of a legend, and that “rather than postulating a separate, original myth of one celestial body, which was then combined with others, it might be more gainful to think in terms of a (flexible) myth based on the structural connection of an Object that is lacking, or located far from its holder, it might be more gainful to think The goddess escapes Ra and is brought back by another divinity in the mythology surrounding the Eye of Ra. Because to Horus’s war with his arch-rival, the deity Set, in their fight for the kingdom of Egypt following the death of Horus’s father Osiris, the Eye of Horus is frequently absent.
Pyramid Texts and Eye of Horus
One of the earliest resources for Egyptian mythology is the Pyramid Texts, which originate from the late Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). The fight between Horus and Set is extensively featured; and the Eye of Horus is referenced in around a quarter of the statements that make it up the Pyramid Texts. Set is supposed to have taken the Eye of Horus, and to have crushed and eaten it in these passages. Horus, on the other hand, frequently snatches the eye back by force. The stealing of Horus’ eye is frequently mentioned in the writings; as is the loss of Set’s testicles, an affliction that is also cured.
Seth and Eye of Horus
Many works from later eras reference and comment on the dispute over the eye. In most of these tales, another deity, most often Thoth, who was thought to have reconciled Horus and Set, restores the eye. Thoth is claimed to have repaired the eye after Set tore it apart in certain stories.
Seth is reported to have taken the appearance of a black boar after hitting Horus’s eye in the New Kingdom’s Book of the Dead. In “The Horus and Set Contendings,” a late New Kingdom work that tells the story of the conflict in a brief tale Set cuts both of Horus’ eyes out and buries them, and the next day they sprout lotuses. Horus’ eyes are restored here by the goddess Hathor, who anoints them with gazelle milk. [13] Horus’ mother Isis washes the buried pair of eyes in Papyrus Jumilhac, a mythical book from the earliest Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC), enabling them to sprout into the first grapes.
“Filling” the eye was a term used to describe the process of restoring vision. Horus’ eye sockets were filled with gazelle milk by Hathor; but inscriptions from Greco-Roman temples claimed that Thoth, together with a company of fourteen other gods, filled the eye with certain plants and minerals. The fifteen gods in Greco-Roman writings symbolized the fifteen days from the new moon to the full moon, and the procedure of filling the Eye of Horus was equated to the waxing of the moon.
The Story of Seth and Eye of Horus
According to Egyptologist Herman te Velde, the Eye of Horus is tied to another episode in the gods’ war; in which Set sexually assaults Horus and Isis and Horus retaliate by forcing Set to eat Horus’s sperm. This story is best described in “The Contendings of Horus and Set,”; in which Horus’s semen emerges as a golden disc on Set’s forehead, which Thoth then places on his own head. Other allusions in Egyptian writings suggest that after Set was pregnant by Horus’s semen; Thoth himself emerged from Seth’s head; while a chapter in the Pyramid Texts claims that the Eye of Horus sprang from Set’s forehead.
The disc that arises from Set’s head, according to Te Velde, is the Eye of Horus. If this is the case, the events of mutilation and sexual abuse would constitute a single plot in which Set abuses Horus and loses his sperm; Horus retaliates and impregnates Set, and Set obtains Horus’ eye when it rises on Set’s head. Because Thoth is a moon god in addition to his other roles; te Velde believes it would make sense for Thoth to appear in the shape of the eye; and intervene to bring the squabbling deities together.
