Due
to Egyptian beliefs about the soul, the
bodies of the deceased royalty were mummified,
and four internal organs were transferred
to canopic jars, and so Horus, embodying
the Pharaoh, was said to be the father
of these four children, deifications of
the jars, known as the Four sons of Horus,
with Isis, his wife, as their mother.
It was said that after the world was created,
Horus landed on a perch, known as the
djeba, which literally translates as finger,
in order to rest, which consequently became
considered sacred. On some occasions,
Horus was referred to as lord of the djeba
(i.e. lord of the perch or lord of the
finger), a form in which he was especially
worshipped at Buto, known as Djebauti,
meaning (ones) of the djeba (the reason
for the plural is not understood, and
may just have been a result of Epenthesis,
or Paragoge). The form of Djebauti eventually
became depicted as an heron, nethertheless
continuing to rest on the sacred perch.
Since
Horus was said to be the sky, it was natural
that he was rapidly considered to also
contain the sun and moon. It became said
that the sun was one of his eyes and the
moon the other, and that they traversed
the sky when he, a falcon, flew across
it. Thus he became known as Harmerty -
Horus of two eyes. Later, the reason that
the moon was not as bright as the sun
was explained by a tale, known as the
contestings of Horus and Set, originating
as a metaphor for the conquest of Lower
Egypt by Upper Egypt in about 3000BC.
In this tale, it was said that Set, the
patron of Lower Egypt, and Horus, the
patron of Upper Egypt, had battled for
Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious,
until eventually the gods sided with Horus.
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