Egypt Exploration Society

The Interpretation of the Horus-Myth of Edfu

Author(s): J. Gwyn Griffiths
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 44 (Dec., 1958), pp. 75-85
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
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 (75)

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH

OF EDFU'
By J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
VERYdivergent explanations have so far been offered of this version of the conflict of
Horus and Seth. On the whole, the tendency has been to reject the original view that
the legend reflects a cult war in favour of the view that it incorporatesan early historical
tradition.2
Newberry3believed that the Edfu story is in essentials a record of the Seth-rebellion
of Peryebsen in the Second Dynasty. In Naville, Mythe d'Horus, pl. i i, he saw a
representation of King Djoser's vizier, Imhotep, 'reading from a scroll as though he
were actually reading a record of the war written in the lines of inscription in front of
him'; in front of Imhotep is a figure who is cutting up a hippopotamus, and Newberry
takes the animal to represent the 'country of Set', which Imhotep directs to be cut up.
But it is doubtful whether this is the Imhotep of Djoser's time. The inscription4above
refers to him as 'the chief lector, scribe of the god's book'; the reference to the original
Imhotep is present only in so far as he had by this time become the half-deified type of
sacred scribe.5 The hippopotamus is doubtless a Sethian animal here; but hardly a
symbol of Seth's country.
Again, Newberry compares the statement from the Edfu text, that the rebellion
arose when the Horus-king was with his army in Nubia, with the record on a fragment
of a stela of Khasekhem, commemoratingthat king's conquest of Nubia. Although the
captives depicted in Hierakonpolis,II, pl. 58 are probably meant to be Nubians, there
is no inscription describing the conquest, and it is clear that a similar comparisonmight
be made with episodes from the lives of a number of Egyptian kings.
The Edfu rebellion is dated in the 363rd year of Harakhti.Newberry takes this as an
era dating: 'It gives the number of years from the establishment of the monarchy by
the Horus-king Menes to the time of the outbreakof the Set rebellion recorded in the
text.' Meyer's restorationof a part of the Annals Stone is followed, whereby 375 years
are counted from the accession of Menes to the beginning of the reign of Khasekhemui
-a difference of twelve years from the era date at Edfu. The correlationseems good
enough as it stands; but even the small difference involved could be accounted for,
argues Newberry, if it were presumed that the ancient annalists recorded the reign of
Khasekhemui only from the time he united the whole country. This is altogether too
ingenious.
I I am indebted to Professor H. W. Fairman for criticisms and suggestions; also to the late Professor A. M.
Blackman,with whom I readthe texts.
2 See especiallyKees, Kultlegende und Urgeschichte (Nachr. G6ttingen, 1930).
3 AncientEgypt, 1922, 40-46.
4 Chassinat, Edfou, vi, 87, 9. Naville takesit to refer to the architectof part or whole of the Edfu temple.
5 Cf. Sethe, Imhotep, I7, and Kees, op. cit. 345.
76 J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
Brugsch' would base the legend on the polemics of the local priestly societies, each
with its special doctrine and festival calendar. An historical element is introduced by
Maspero2 in the theory that the followers of Horus of Edfu, the Msntyw, translated
'Smiths', are connected with an African people who became dominant through the dis-
covery of the use of iron weapons; otherwise, he follows Brugschin claimingthe struggle
to be a theological one in which the scenes of conflict are the nomes where Seth has
a sanctuaryand partisans.
Sethe,3 on the other hand, suggests vaguely that historical reminiscences may be
conserved in the legend of Mesen, 'Harpoon-City', the name frequently applied to
Edfu in the legend. Both Meyer4 and Junker5claim that the myth reflects the original
conflict between Horus and Seth which they place in predynastic times. H. R. Hall6
thinks that the myth is a late working-up of historical reminiscencesof the arrivalof the
Upper Egyptians from Nubia and the south. H. W. Fairman,7who completed, with
A. M. Blackman,a much-needed study of the myth in the way of translationand com-
mentary, regardsNewberry's opinion as 'attractiveand plausible', but reserveshis own
opinion for a future statement.
Kees8 marks out as the two chief features of the legend:
(i) The driving out of Seth over the north-east boundary near Sile, the god being
connected with the hereditaryAsiatic enemy.
(2) The conflict with the cults of the crocodile and the hippopotamus, hated in the
falcon-cities, which forms the kernel of the harpoon-myth and is skilfully inter-
woven with the destruction of all the Sethian cult-places in Egypt.
He dwells on the early identification of Seth with the foreign land or the desert,9
but argues against connecting the legend generally with predynastic or early dynastic
events. He points out that in the early texts Horus and Seth are described as sharing
Egypt between them; now Horus is given the wholeI0and Seth is driven out. This may
be the result of his becoming the state-god of the Hyksos, and his subsequent association
with the arch-enemy of Egypt, Semitic Asia. His temporary return to power in the
Ramesside period was followed by a general persecution, which would have been very
strong under the bigoted orthodoxy of the Ethiopic rule.
I Abh. G6ttingen, I4 (I868-9), I77.
2 c'Ltudes de mythologie et d'archeologie egyptiennes', in Bibl. egyptol., II, 313 ff. Sethe's view that the
Msntyw are 'harpooners', i.e. hunters of the hippopotamus, is now generally accepted, e.g. Kees, op. cit. 349,
and Fairman in JEA 2I, 29, n. 2.
3
Urgeschichte, §§ I55-62. In § i6i he states: 'Man k6nnte denken, daB wirklich in Edfu, am damaligen
Siidende des Landes, der letzte Schlag in dem Kampf der Unteraigypter des Reiches von Damanhur gegen die
Oberagypter des Reiches von Ombos gefallen sei . ...'
4 E. Meyer, Gesch. Alt., 3rd edn. i, 2, §§ 181, I99. 5 H. Junker, Onurislegende,20.
6 H. R. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, 94.
7 H. W. Fairman, 'The Myth of Horus at Edfu, I',
inJEA 21, 28, n. 2. His statement that 'Kees. .. claims
that these legends have no historical value' is an exaggeration of that scholar's position. Blackman and Fairman
in JEA 28, 32-33 give prominence to Sethe's view.
8 Op. cit. 355.
9 It is doubtful whether Seth was the god of foreign countries as early as the Old Kingdom. See Gardiner
and Gunn, JEA 5, 44, n. 2.
10 This is already the case with Geb's second verdict in the Denkmal memphitischerTheologie.
 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH OF EDFU 77
Kees must be granted to have demonstrated at least that if the legend is based on
history, its connexions are other than prehistoric. Seth, he says, frequently appears in
this legend as the representativeof Lower Egypt; which is never the case in the early
literature. The persecution of the cults of the hippopotamus and crocodile, which is so
important an element, must be placed at least in the New Kingdom. Save-Soderbergh'
has pointed to earlier instances of hippopotamus-huntingbeing representedor alluded
to; but a Sethian meaning is not clearly attested before the New Kingdom. The Ptole-
maic texts of Edfu and Denderah show that the Horus-cities led in this persecution, and
the Edfu legend includes among the cities which supported such an attitude the cities
of Osiris and Min.
To these facts emphasized by Kees may be added the manifest difference in the
conception of the kingship. In the Pyramid Texts the king is sometimes represented as
an incarnationof Horus and Seth, and this can be construed as a clue to the historical
meaning of the political unity achieved after the predynastic conflict. There is no such
fusion of the two gods in the Edfu legend. The king is ReI-Harakhti,and Horus of
Behdet is his chief guardian god. Seth, on the other hand, is completely degraded in
a manner which would not have been possible in any text originating from the Old
Kingdom. It may be argued, of course, that all these differences are accretions con-
tributed by a late theology, and that the matter which conserves the early conflict is
only a thin substratum or a bare outline. But the difficulty of defining this substratum
is great, since it is not only the theology that is different, but the topography of the
quarrel and the main details of the action. At least three Horuses are prominent in the
Edfu account-Horus of Behdet, Horus the son of Isis, and Horus the Elder. Helio-
polis and Pr-rh42 are no longer importantin the topographyof the conflict, and Gehesti
and Nedeyet are not mentioned. The mutilation of the eye of Horus does not figure in
the action; generally there is only a mass attack on the crocodiles and the hippopotami,
which is often followed by a vengeful sacrificialmeal,3paralleledin the Pyramid Texts
only by the sacrificialeating of the bull.
The interpretationoffered by Kees is that parts of the myth, especially the Legend
of the Winged Disk, reflect a cult feud ratherthan a political conflict.4At the same time
he sees in the whole myth the impress of two great historical experiences, the expulsion
of the Hyksos and, more vividly, the expulsion of the Persians. A referenceto the latter
experience is found by him in the use of the word Mdy,5 which he translates 'Mede'
I On Egyptian Representationsof Hippopotamus Hunting as a Religious Motive (Horae Soederblomianae,
Uppsala, 1953). On p. I7 he cites an example which is probably prehistoric: it is on a schist palette (fig. 8) now
in the Egyptian Museum at Stockholm. He wisely refrains from suggesting that the hippopotamus at this stage
represents Seth. E. J. Baumgartel, The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt, 30, 33-35, 65, 84, is equally cautious; but
not so Wainwright, The Sky-Religion in Egypt, Ii.
2
According to Chassinat, Edfou, VI, 121, 13, Re' moors his barque there, but no fighting takes place.
3
E.g. Horus of Behdet, according to Chassinat, op. cit. vi, i i6, 8 ff., brought 142 enemies before Re(: 'He
slew them with his knife and gave their inner parts to those who were in his following and gave their flesh
to every god and goddess who was in this barque of Re( on the bank of Hebenu.' Cf. ibid. 127; and ii, 65;
i, 68; vi, 119, 7 if. a personal combat between Seth and Horus of Behdet is described, but without the ancient
details.
4
Op. cit. 348. s See Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 214, 12 and 215, 2.
78 J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
and which Sethe had connected with the Coptic s^tTol 'soldier'. The Late Egyptian
idiom of the section about the 'Red Hippopotamus' may be an argument for Kees's
interpretationof that section; it suggests, at least, in company with other differences,
that the various parts of the myth may diverge greatly in origin and meaning. The
particularreference to the Persians is, however, doubtful. It is disconcerting, for one
thing, that the term Mdy is applied to Horus and not to Seth,' even if the appellation
is scornful. If Seth truly represents the Persian invader, he would not be ridiculing
Horus by calling him a 'Mede'.2 Sethe, it is true, connects the Coptic iatoi with the
Egyptian Mdy, suggesting that the meaning 'soldier' developed from the meaning
'Mede'.3 The present passage, however, strongly suggests that this development has
alreadytaken place, and that Mdy here means 'soldier'. 'Re( said to Thoth, What is this
they are speaking of, Horus and Seth? And Thoth answered, Seth said to Horus, Let
us call the Mdyw with the names of the foreign countries. Horus said to Seth, A chal-
lenge to the name of the Egyptians from Seth.'4 Now the foreign-land determinative
supports the view that Mdy means 'Mede', at least originally.But in the passage quoted,
this meaning yields very poor sense. The Mdyw are here clearly equated with the
Egyptians; further, if they did mean 'Medes', it would be no insult to give them foreign
names. Applied as the term is to Horus and his followers, it probably denotes armed
Egyptian soldiers.
As this is the main point in Kees's 'Persian' interpretation,it cannot be said that his
position is well founded. On the other hand, the view here put forwardas to the mean-
ing of Mdy in this context would involve giving a still later date, perhaps, to this section
of the legend.
The Winged Disk
There are certain facts about the legend of 'The Winged Disk' which suggest that
it may be historical. The struggle against Seth is led by the 'King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Re(-Harakhti';5Horus of Behdet and Horus son of Isis are only his assistants.6
The opening, with its description of the king's return from Nubia, does not pretend to
be mythological. Action in Nubia is also mentioned later on, as a part of the general
campaign against Seth and his confederates.7The campaign begins near Edfu, and
results in the driving of the enemies into the sea.
It must be confessed that a number of places mentioned in the description of the
drive northwards seem to owe their prominence to cult propagandaand conflict. The
I Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 214, I2: 'Seth said, Come, Mdy! It was said as a challenge.'
2 Wb. ii, 177 (2i) knows Mdy, written with the Seth-animal as a determinative, as an epithet of Seth. It does
not apparently record the present word.
3
Sethe, Spuren der Perserherrschaftin der spdteren dgyptischenSprache (Nachr. Gottingen, 1916), 124 ff. It
was formerly thought that the Coptic -t&Toi was derived from the Egyptian Md;y, which was identified by
Schaiferwith the word Mdy as used in the Nastesen inscription. See H. Schaifer,Die aethiopischeKonigsinschrift
des Berliner Museums, 41-42; and for Md4y see F. LI. Griffith, Rylands Papyri, 31 9, and Gardiner, JEA 3, 105;
5, 47, n. 2.
4 Chassinat, Edfou, VI, 214, 12-215, 3.
s Ibid. I09, 9.
6 Ibid. Io, 2 ff.: 'And Horus of Behdet was in the barque of R<.' For Horus son of Isis, see vi, 120, 4 ff.
7 Ibid. 128, 7 ff. Seth is not mentioned in connexion with the first reference to Nubia.
 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH OF EDFU 79
nome of Denderah' had a feather over the crocodile as its sign, and this was interpreted,
at least in late times, as the triumph of Osiris over Seth.2 Hebenu,3 where a fight is
staged, is known for the falcon over the gazelle in its nome-sign, explained with refer-
ence to Horus and Seth.4 The latter has well-attested associations with Meret5 in the
Oxyrhynchite nome.6 Pr-rhwy, where a great slaughter is said to take place,7 is placed
near Meret. With the exception of T;rw and Hnt-i;bt, which figure in the final phases
of the struggle, the other places mentioned, such as Naref8 and St-i;b-i,9 are associated
with Osiris and Horus.
A prominent feature which is in favour of viewing the conflict as a cult feud is the
theological etymologizing with which the story is constantly punctuated; for example,
the struggle near Meret contains the episode:
ThenHorusof Behdetwagedwarwiththe enemyfora longtime.He hurledhis spearat him,and
casthimon the groundI" in thistown;andit is called'The Houseof the Two Rivals'(Pr-rhwy)to
I
this day.
The same impression is given by the naming of festivals and their times, such as the
'festival of rowing' in Pr-rhwy;I2 and by the ritual emphasis of such a comment as this
on the victory of Horus:
He has acted accordingto the book of repellingthe hippopotamus.13
One must agree with Kees, therefore, in following Brugsch's belief that the conflict
represented in this section of the legend is in the main a cult conflict. There is no trace
here of the alleged association of Seth with the Persians; but there are some reasons
for claiming that the expulsion of the Hyksos has left a subsidiary impression on the
legend. One is the prominence of the nome of Sile in the account. A great slaughter and
sacrificeare said to take place in Trw,'4 also called Hnt-aibt;I5 and this culminatesin the
complete expulsion of the enemies from Egypt.'6 Hnt-ibt, 'the beginning of the East',
I I
Ibid. 115, 6: 'He saw them to the north-east of the nome of Denderah.' The writing is not, as far as I know,
used of Denderah itself, although Fairman, JEA 21, 30, takes it in that way.
2 Mariette, Denderah, III, 78. The sacred marriage between Horus of Edfu and Hathor of Denderah ensured
local hostility to Seth and the crocodile. Cf. Kees, Horus und Seth, II, 43; Sethe, Urgeschichte,§ 49.
3 Chassinat, op. cit. vi, I i6, 5 ff.
4 See Junker, Onurislegende,37-38; Kees, op. cit. II, 23; Sethe, op. cit. § 6i. The sign appears thus in Chas-
sinat, op. cit. VI, 70, 3.
5 Chassinat, op. cit. vi, i i8, 2 ff.
6 See Kees, op. cit. II, 44-45. The text itself is suggestive of a cult quarrel: 'They reached the water of the

nome of Meret, and that confederacy of Seth which is in this town' (Chassinat, op. cit. vi, I i8, 2-3).
7 Chassinat, op. cit. vi, II8, 6; 119, 8; I2I, 6. It is probably to be read Pr-rhwy and not Pr-rhhwy as Gau-
thier, Dict. geog.
II, I07, and Fairman, JEA 21, 3I, would read it. The occasional double j may be due to the
conventional writing of the dual: see Wb. II, 441 and 442. The name may occur on a predynastic palette, see
Petrie, Ceremonial Slate Palettes, I9G and p.
I4; but this is very doubtful.
8 Chassinat, op. cit. vi,
123, 3, and Fairman, JEA 21, 33.
9 Chassinat, op. cit. VI, I23, I ff., and Fairman, loc. cit. n. 4.
10 Accepting Fairman's plausible emendation, loc. cit. 31, n. 6.
" Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 119, 7 ff.
12 Ibid. vi,
121, 8-9. Cf. VI, 123, i ff. and vi, 126, 3 ff.
I3 Ibid. vi, I14, 2. Cf. Schott, Urk. vi,6I : 'The Ritual of Repelling the Evil One.'
14 Chassinat, op. cit. vi, 127, 7 ff. Is Ibid. I27, 14.
16 Ibid. 128, 2:'Re' said to Horus of Behdet, Let us sail to the sea, that we may drive the enemies as croco-
diles and hippopotami from Egypt.'
80 J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
was the name of the i4th Lower Egyptian nome, and its capital Trw, Sile near El-
Kantara,was the place where the caravan-routeleft Egypt for Palestine and which was
naturallythe point of influx for invaders and the point for an Egyptian frontier fortress
against Asia. In the same nome was Tanis, which is known to have been a centre of
government of the Hyksos.' Avaris was probably on or near the site of Tanis.2
The Expulsion of Seth from Egypt
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in the references to the triumphant ejection
of Seth from the country there are embodied reminiscences of the expulsion of the
Hyksos. No such ejection occurs in the early accounts of the quarrel, and its presence
in the Edfu account can hardly be explained on the lines of cult propaganda,since cer-
tain centres of the cult of Seth must have remained unaffected by the persecution
inculcated in the myth.3 The ejection of Seth via T;rw may be said to be the culminat-
ing point of the legend of 'The Winged Disk'. In the more avowedlyritualistic section
on 'The Triumph of Horus' there is a suggestion of the same idea, but with a difference:
here the expulsion is seen in triumphant retrospect. Horus of Behdet is'the lion who
presides in Hnt-ibt, who has driven Seth from Lower Egypt, goodly defender of the
Two Lands and of the Banks, the protector who protects Egypt'.4 He is 'the goodly
watchman in the Two Lands and the Banks, who protects the cities, who defends the
nomes, the falcon, great in might in Pe and Mesen, the lion who presides in T;rw'.5
Politically more precise, in its reference to a subjugation of Lower Egypt and the
subsequent unification of the whole country-corresponding broadly to the achieve-
ment of the Upper Egyptian regime which drove out the Hyksos-is the statement
that Horus is 'the lion who presides in T;rw, falcon great in might, Lord of Upper and
Lower Egypt, defender who defends Egypt against the Northerners, wall of copper
A monument of Ramesses II at Tanis is explained thus; cf. Sethe, Urgeschichte, 187. T;rw was formerly
taken to be Tanis; see Gardiner's survey in JEA 5, 244, n. 6, and Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, i, I100.
T?rw is placed near Ismailia by Steindorff, Die dgyptischen Gaue, 864 ff.; cf. Erman, in ZAS 43, 73. For its
location at Sile see Kees, Horus und Seth, II, 72; Sethe, Urgeschichte,§ 78.
2 The
geography of Tanis, Avaris, and other places in the North-east Delta is exhaustively discussed by
GardinerinJEA 3,99 ff.; 5, 127ff., 242 ff.; 10, 94ff.; and 19, I22 ff., where he comes eventually to the conclusion
that Avaris, Pi-ra'messe, and Dja(net were successive names of the same place, Tanis or San-el-Hagar. Pi-
Racmesse and Tanis are mentioned separately in the Onomasticon of Amenope, and Gardiner in AEO II, I73*-
5* seems a little more hesitant about their identification. Kees in Das alte Agypten, o109expresses the view that
Pi-Ra'messe was in Tanis and that Avaris was closely adjacent to Tanis; cf. Montet, Geographiedel'Jgypte
ancienne, I, 193 if.
3 Cf. Kees, Kultlegende u. Urgeschichte, 361, where it is stated that there is no clear evidence that the out-
lawing of crocodile and hippopotamus, which the Horus-myth demands, had gained general recognition. The
Suchos-cult especially was secure in the Upper Thebaid, in spite of the proximity of cities which supported
the cult of Horus.
4 Chassinat, Edfou, vi, 65, 2-3.
Ibid. 71, io-i . Cf. ibid. 72, 7-8: 'Horus of Behdet, great god, lord of heaven, protector who
protects the cities and the nomes, whose arms are stretched around Upper and Lower Egypt, his Mesen-city
being their leader'; and ibid. 84, 1-3: 'Horus of Behdet . . lord of the fm<-s-crown, ruler of the mh-s-crown,
King of the Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, excellent ruler, ruler of rulers. I take hold of the crook and the
flail as the lord of this land, I seize the Two Lands with the Double Crown, I overthrow the enemy of my father
Osiris as King of Upper and Lower Egypt for ever and ever.' This exclusive kingship of Horus is very different
from the reconciliatory double kingship portrayed sometimes in the Pyramid Texts.
 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH OF EDFU
round his Upper Egyptian Mesen, watchman of his Lower Egyptian Mesen'.1 Sile is
now a frontier fort against Asia, as Edfu is in the south against Nubia. Its position as
the Lower Egyptian counterpartof Edfu is explained in relationto a victory over Seth.2
By a process of syncretism the Hyksos made the Seth-religion the religion of the
state.3 Seth was worshipped from early times in the North-east Delta, so that the in-
vaders may have only renewed the cult in that region and joined it with one of their
own.4 An example of the identification of Seth and Baal occurs in the Edfu myth,5 but
this could derive, of course, from a much later period. More significant for the inter-
pretationof 'The Winged Disk' and 'The Triumph of Horus' is the fact that the struggle
between the Hyksos and the Egyptians who expelled them seems to have been regarded
partly as a struggle between Rec and Seth. The story of the quarrel of Apophis and
Seknenredillustrates this. It is stressed that Seth or Sutekh is the god of Apophis. The
name of SeknenreTand the mention of Re-Harakhti6 and Amenre7 indicate that Rec in
some form is regardedas the rival deity. HIatshepsut,describingher reconstructionafter
the havoc wrought by the Hyksos, complains about the Asiatics who had lived in
Avaris that they 'ruled without Re(.8 It is indeed clear that, in spite of the prominence
of Horus of Behdet and the other Horuses in the Edfu myth, it is Rec who is its theo-
logical mainspring. Horus of Behdet is himself but 'the image of Re in Upper Egypt'.9
Re'-Harakhtidescribes him as 'the son of Re(, exalted one who came forth from me'.10
According to a text edited by Schott,," the Horus-falcon is 'the living ba of Re'. In the
same way Thoth, in this system of theology, as Blackman pointed out to me, is 'the
heart of Re('.I2 In the narrative of 'The Winged Disk', which has a more historical
I Ibid. 75, 5-6.
2 See Kees, Horus und Seth, II, 72; Sethe, Urgeschichte, § 148; Kees, Kultlegende u. Urgeschichte, 358. It
should be noted that Sile does not figure in the other sections of the myth. The fight between Horus son of Isis
and Seth takes place to the east of Edfu, see Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 135, 2. 6. II; the story of the 'Red Hippo-
potamus' has its centre in Edfu and Elephantine; and in the story of the 'Red Donkey' the fight occurs in the
ioth Upper Egyptian nome (op. cit. vi, 220, 5-6), Seth being connected, as in early times, with Shashetep as
well (ibid. 221, 2).
3 Cf. P.Sallier I, I, Gunn inJ EA 5,40: 'Then King Apophis took Setekh to himself
2-3, trans. Gardinerand
as lord, and did not serve any god which was in the entire land except Setekh.'
4 See Junker in ZAS 75, 77 ff. on the cult at Sethroe, and
Cermy on the still earlier cult of the god in the
Delta, Ann. Serv. 44, 295 ff.
5 Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 71, 12. 6 Gardiner, Late-Egyptian Stories, 86, I-2.
7 Ibid. 87, 2. For a new interpretation of the story see Save-Soderbergh, On Egyptian Representations of
HippopotamusHunting etc., 43 ff.
8 Urk. iv, 390, 9. Gunn suggests that the meaning implies their refusal to act by means of a divine oracle.
See Gardiner inJEA 32, 55. Save-Soderbergh inJEA 37,64 describes both this statement and that in P.Sallier I
as 'a propagandist exaggeration'. Mayani, Les^Hyksos et le monde de la Bible, 120, translates 'qui regnaient sans
connaitre Re<', but 'connaitre', which Breasted suggested, should be deleted.
9 Chassinat, op. cit. vi, I I3, 5; cf. vi, I3, 2-3: 'Then Re<-Harakhtisaid to Horus of Behdet, This is my
image in Upper Egypt.' See also Fairman's note, JEA 21, 29, n. 3.
O10Chassinat, op. cit. VI, III, 3.
I Urk. VI, 75, 9-12. In the context it is used syncretistically of the ram of Mendes. For the falcon as the ba
of Re', both at Edfu and at Philae, see Schott's note ad loc.; Junker, WZKM 26, 42 ff.; Kees, Kultlegende u.
Urgeschichte, 353.
12 Chassinat, op. cit. VI, 92, 13: 'Thoth ... the heart of Re.' Cf. ibid. VII, 322, 7 and Chassinat, Dendara,
1,28, 12; I, 64, I I-12; II, 170, I0; III, 9, I-2; III, 19, I7; 111, 52, 9; III, 67, 11-12. lam indebted to Blackman for
the references to Chassinat, Dendara.
B 6533 M
82 J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
appearancethan any other section of the myth, Rec-Harakhti,as we have already ob-
served, is the leader of the campaign against Seth.
Against this must be noted the remarkablefact that many of the Hyksos kings had
their names compounded with Re(., It is the opinion of Labib2 that the fight between
Apophis and Seknenrecis, in religion, the fight between Sutekh and Amuin. Unlike
'The Book of the Victory over Seth',3 the myth of Edfu contains no reference to the
return of Seth after his first expulsion. In the former text, Seth is said to be driven out
of Egypt 'to the land of the Asiatics'.4 Later, however, Re-Harakhti is entreated to
remember that he had commanded 'to give Egypt to Horus, the desert (?) to Seth' ;5
in the meantime the enemy has returned: 'Behold, Seth, the wretched one, is come
upon his way, he has returned in order to seize with his hand; he has planned to seize
violently (?), as he formerly destroyed places (var. houses). . . .6 His vile deeds in
attacking Egypt are then described, and Rec eventually renews his banishment from
Egypt: 'Seth shall not stay in Egypt. For it shall be forbidden him (to stay there).'7
Spells follow which are intended for the protection of Egypt against the invader. All
this may be referred with some reason to the later Asiatic invasions, or the threat of
them. So far Kees8 may be right, and there is some evidence supporting a detailed
application of the idea. But it is to be noted that the absence of any mention of the
second coming of Seth in the Edfu myth, taken in conjunction with other facts, is an
argumentfor seeing in the ejection of Seth in that myth a reminiscenceof the expulsion
of the Hyksos.
In the case of the Assyrians there was indeed no forcible expulsion. Psammetichus I
was favoured by the Assyrians, and it was only owing to the difficulties of his foreign
masters that he paved the way for Egypt's comparativefreedom in the Twenty-sixth
Dynasty.9 Concerning the end of the Persian domination we know more since the
publication by Kraeling of the important Aramaic papyri in the Brooklyn Museum.
Kraelinglohas been able to show, on the basis of this new evidence, that Artaxerxes II
(404-36I B.C.),and not Darius II, was the las t Persian king to rule over Egypt; it was
the rebellion of his brother Cyrus, aided by the Greek expedition of Xenophon, that
weakened his position and enabled the revolt led by Amyrtaeus, of Manetho's Twenty-
eighth Dynasty, to be fully successful. It appears, however, that the national revival in
Egypt at that time was not comparableto the attitude prevalent in the Twenty-sixth
Dynasty."' The renaissance of the Saite period, which probably witnessed a religious
I See Pahor C. Labib, Die Herrschaft der Hyksos in Agypten und ihr Sturz, 13. 23. 24. Junker, ZAS 75, 8I
says that we must not press the Hatshepsut inscription when it says that the Hyksos did not know Re (sic). He
points out that their kings generally have the s;-Rc title. But it is very probable that the names, and of course the
titles, were adopted by them and did not originally belong to them: see Engberg, The Hyksos Reconsidered,46.
2 Op. cit. 36. 3 Edited by Schott in Urk. vi. 4 Ibid. I3, 6. 5 Ibid. 17, 17. 6 Ibid. 17-19.
7 Schott, ibid. 26 translates nn is wd tw n-f 'denn es ist ihm nicht befohlen'. Gunn pointed out in lectures at
Oxford that n wd is the regular Egyptian equivalent for 'to forbid'. On p. 24 one should therefore translate
similarly: 'He knows not the fear of Thy Majesty; he approaches Egypt when thou knowest not, although it
has been forbidden to him.'
8 Kees, Kultlegende u. Urgeschichte, 358. 9 Breasted, History of Egypt, 565 ff.
10 E. G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri, 31-32. I am indebted to Fairman for calling my
attention to this work. " Breasted, op. cit. 595.
 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH OF EDFU 83
revival involving the persecution of Sethian cults, was not paralleled afterwards.'
A work referring to Seth in this spirit and referring to an Asiatic invasion after the
expulsion of the Hyksos would be more likely for these reasons to emanate from the
Saite period. It is just possible that a section of 'The Book of Victory over Seth' refers
in some detail to the invasion of the Assyrian Esarhaddon, who captured Memphis.2
The misdeeds of Seth are said in this section to concern Memphis especially:
He has inflicted misery in Tjenent [a sanctuary at Memphis], he has devised rebellion in Memphis.
Lo, he enters into the holy place of Memphis.3 (Schott, Urk. VI, I9, o10ff.)
No allusion of this kind occurs in the Edfu myth.
That 'The Winged Disk' and 'The Triumph of Horus' are to be connected rather
with the expulsion of the Hyksos is suggested by the Nubian associations of Horus of
Behdet. Nubia figures twice in 'The Winged Disk', not without the suggestion that it
is part of Rec-Harakhti'skingdom. In 'The Triumph of Horus' it is said of Horus:4
Behold, thou art a Nubian in Khenfet. Thou sittest in thy temple, and Rec has given thee his king-
ship that thou mayest overthrow the hippopotamus. (Chassinat, Edfou, vi, 69, 9-io.)
Keess quoted a text from Edfu which describes Horus as 'Horus of Edfu, the sacred
falcon who came out of Weten6 to unite himself with Edfu as the lord of the throne'.
He quotes too7 from a building-block in Cairo: 'Erecting a temple for Horus of Nubia
in the nome of Wtst-Hr.' Further, in 'The Winged Disk', as we have alreadynoted, the
text begins with a mention of the king's returnfrom Nubia; and a campaignthere against
Seth and his followers is described afterwards.
In spite of the paucity of the records dealing with the expulsion of the Hyksos, Nubia
figures in the actions of both Kamose and Amosis. The former relateshis position in the
well-known CarnarvonTablet No. 1:8
Let me understandwhat this strengthof mine is for! (One) prince is in Avaris,anotherin Kush,
and (here) I sit associated with an Asiatic and a Nubian.
The stela of Kamose, which Labib Habachi discovered in 1954 in front of the second
pylon of Karnak, reveals that the Hyksos king Apophis (rc-wsr-Rr) sought to effect an
alliance with the King of Nubia against Kamose and that the latter's soldiers inter-
cepted a dispatch which Apophis hoped to send to Nubia.9 But it was Amosis, the first
Spiegelberg, tr. Blackman, The Credibility of Herodotus'Account of Egypt, 7; Gardiner and Gunn in JEA
5, 45. In the Ramesside era Seth had new power as a state god, but the Libyan Dynasty which followed the
Ramesside kings did not persecute Seth. It seems that Seth was not merely tolerated by them at a distance, as
Kees suggests, Kultlegendeu. Urgeschichte,357, but was held in honour. Cf. his role in the Dakhlah Stela which
derives from the Twenty-second Dynasty, see Gardiner in JEA 19, 19 ff.
2
Breasted, op. cit. 555.
3 Schott: 'das Serapeum'. In Schott, Urk. vi, ff. it is said of Seth: 'He has devised conflict, he has given
19, 20
forth a roaring in the presence of the gods in Menset (1 M - ' '). Wb. iI, 88 gives as a place
in or near Heliopolis.
4 Or of his harpoon? s Kultlegende u. Urgeschichte,354.
6 to Kees an African land in the south-east. 7 Kees, loc. cit.
According
8 Cf.
Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, I64 and Gardiner in JEA 3, 99.
9 See Labib Habachi in Ann. Serv. and in Les Grandes Decouvertes archdologiquesde 1954
53, 195-202
(Cairo, I955), 52-58; M. Hammad in Chron. d'Eg. 30, I98-208; and cf. Siegfried Horn in Bibl. Orient. I4,
216-17.
84 J. GWYN GRIFFITHS
king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who, after driving the Hyksos from the Delta, won
victories in Lower Nubia and recapturedthe territoryup to Buhen.' If there is, then,
a correlationhere with the story of the Edfu myth, the exploits of Amosis will provide
it. Certainly the double activity of the two accounts, set in the North-east Delta and
in Nubia, is a striking resemblance.
It is true that the Karnak stela of Kamose makes it clear, as Save-Soderbergh2has
pointed out, that Kamose also attacked both Lower Egypt and Nubia. The relevant
allusion may be translated thus:
Do youbehold3whatis beingdoneto Egypt4in oppositionto me?A5rulerwhois withinit, Kamose-
ken,givenlife,is pressingme frommy domains.I hadnotattackedhimin the fashionof allhe did
againstyou. He relegatesthesetwo landsto torment,my landandyours,sincehe has devastated
them. (lines 20-22.)
There is doubt about the referenceof some of the tenses in this stela, but not about the
past tense of 'he has devastatedthem'. Kamose clearly attackedNubia first; and after-
wards the Hyksos positions in Lower Egypt. Still, the final victory was achieved by
Amosis, and his exploits were therefore more likely to be remembered.
the of Edfu the
The thesis which finds in the Horus-mythmpress
Horus-myth ofimpress of the Hyksos inva-
sion and of their eventual ejection must clearlyrest to some extent on the conception of
the Hyksos as hated foreign invaders. Save-Soderbergh6has argued against such a
conception having prevailed from the beginning among the Egyptians. He suggests7
that the term hklw h4swt 'gives us the impression that the Hyksos were only a little
group of foreign dynasts rather than a numerous people with a special civilization'.
The interpretation of the phrase seems still an open question; but there is evidence
to suggest that Asiatic infiltrationon a larger scale had taken place previously. Hayes8
makes a just comment to this effect in considering the significanceof a list of forty-five
Asiatic persons attached to the household of an Upper Egyptian official. It might be
argued that his generalization('If, as seems likely, similar groups of these outlanders
were to be found in well-to-do households throughout the whole of Egypt, then the
Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period must have been many times more
numerous than has previously been supposed') is too confident. But his instance is the
more cogent for being located in Upper Egypt. Asiatic influence would be more easily
felt, it stands to reason, in for example the Eastern Delta.
I Save-Soderbergh, Agypten und Nubien, 143; and in JEA 37, 7I.
2 'The Nubian Kingdom of the Second Intermediate Period', in Kush, 4, 54-61, especially p. 57.
3 Save-Soderbergh, Kush, 4, 57: 'Do(n't) you see ....' For the sense of nonne, however, a negative would
be expected in Egyptian, see Gardiner, Eg. Grammar3,§ 491, 3 and § 492.
Labib Habachi and S.-S.: 'what Egypt has done against me'; Hammad: 'what Egypt has done to me'.
Such a bold personification of 'Egypt' as an agent seems unlikely in spite of the earlier sentence 'they have
abandoned Egypt, their mistress'. In the same stela we find the phrases 'within Egypt' (i8), 'in Egypt' (23) and
'the towns of Egypt', and the first of these phrases refers to the damage done by Egyptians who were helping
the Hyksos. The Hyksos king was of course in possession of a part of the country, so that Kamose can hardly be
equated with Egypt here. Further, a present tense is more consonant with the hr thm that follows. On the other
hand, the expression irt-nf nbt r'k (2I-22) favours the other rendering.
5 Rather than 'the': Kamose was not the only one. Indeed, zhk suits the Hyksos ruler as well in a special way.
6 JEA
37, 53-7I ('The Hyksos Rule in Egypt'). 7 JEA 37, 56.
8 A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom, 148-9.
 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE HORUS-MYTH OF EDFU 85
Save-Soderbergh' states further that 'according to Manetho's version it also seems
as if the Hyksos rule only meant a change of political leaders in Egypt, and not a mass-
invasion of a numerically important foreign ethnic element'. This explanation is hard
to understand. Manetho suggests just the opposite, as the following excerpt from Wad-
dell's translation(p. 79, quoted also by Save-S6derbergh)shows:
. . . and unexpectedly,fromthe regionsof the East, invadersof obscureracemarchedin confidence
of victoryagainstourland.By mainforcetheyeasilyseizedit withoutstrikinga blow;andhaving
overpowered the rulersof the land,they. . . treatedallthe nativeswitha cruelhostility.
Here the phrase -royevos ar-tc[ot is admittedly vague,2 but the eastern provenanceof the
invaders is emphasized. Their overwhelming number is suggested by Kara Kpa'oS'; and
their foreig n is again stressed by the allusion to their treatment of the natives.
There is, of course, no necessary contradictionbetween a sudden military and political
take-over and a previous gradual infusion of Asiatic elements into the population.
Discussing the textthtof the Carnarvontablet, Save-Soderbergh3rightly stresses the
mild interpretation given by the king's grandees to the Hyksos domination: 'The
Hyksos are not regarded only as cruel and oppressive godless barbarians-the usual
picture in the later sourcesit is possibl teo a deal with them and to live in peace
with them.' But one is justified also in noting the trenchant attitude of Kamose himself.
Save-Soderbergh well translates one sentence thus (p. 68): 'I will grapple with him
and rip open his belly, for my desire is to deliver Egypt and to smite the Asiatics.'
This ist nationalism
the of the native leader facing alien domination; and it follows that a
feeling of hostile hatred towards the Hyksos is attested from one part of a contemporary
source.
Save-Soderbergh would agree, presumably, that the attitude of hostility was in any
case very evident in later times, so that it could have coloured-if the hypothesis is in
other ways acceptable-allusions to the Hyksos as Sethian enemies in the Edfu myth.

Conclusion
The Horus-myth of Edfu, in so far as it reflects a historical-political rather than a
cult feud, probably mirrors the ejection of the Hyksos. There are no clear allusions
in it to the expulsion of either the Assyrians or the Persians. Another late text, 'The
Book of Victory over Seth', may, on the other hand, contain a referenceto the overthrow
of Memphis by the Assyrian Esarhaddon.
The campaignsagainst the Hyksos, which Kees finds reflectedin the myth (as well as
those against the Assyrians and Persians), can perhaps be related in some detail to
certain episodes in 'The Winged Disk' and in 'The Triumph of Horus', since these
episodes invite correlation with the Egyptian victories in the North-east Delta and
in Nubia. At the same time much of 'The Winged Disk' concerns struggles between
different cults and most of 'The Triumph of Horus' has a ritual purport.
I JEA 37, 56.
2 Engberg, The Hyksos Reconsidered,4, translates 'a people of ignoble origin'. This derogatory sense of
acr,//os is well attested and is on the whole preferable, since the invaders' origin is clearly not imagined as
unknown. 3 JEA
37, 69.