Set, the God of Storms and Disorder

Set (Seth, Sutekh, Setesh) was one of the most ancient and most contradictory gods of Egypt. He was the god of storms, deserts, foreign lands, and the military, but he was also the murderer of Osiris, the eternal opponent of Horus, and, in the Late Period, a near-demon whose image was often smashed in temple rituals. To the Egyptians, Set was both necessary and dangerous, the lord of the wild and the bringer of the storm. The cult is treated in detail by Richard H. Wilkinson (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, 2003, pp. 200-206) and, for the historical period, by Toby Wilkinson (The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, 2011, pp. 213-230).

This page traces the long history of Set. For the broader context, see the cluster page on Set and the Gods of Chaos. For the central myth involving Set, see The Myth of Osiris, Isis, and Set.

The Origins of Set

Set was one of the oldest gods in the Egyptian pantheon. His name appears in the royal names of the First Dynasty, and his image is found in early dynastic monuments from the cities of Naqada, Ombos, and Abydos. In his earliest form, Set was a sky god, a powerful warrior who stood on the prow of the sun barque and defended Ra against the chaos serpent Apophis.

Whether he was always a sky god is, in my view, the most interesting open question in Set studies. The older reading, which you can still find in textbooks, was that Set began as a benevolent sky and storm god, became demonized in the Middle Kingdom after the rise of the Osiris cult, and was progressively vilified through the New Kingdom and the Late Period. The more recent reading, argued most strongly by the German Egyptologist Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert and (with different emphases) by the Polish epigrapher Joanna Popielska-Grzybowska, is that Set was already ambivalent in the Early Dynastic Period. The very early texts at Naqada already associate him with violence and the foreign; the “benevolent sky god” reading is partly a back-projection from his later Ramesside rehabilitation. I think the second reading is closer to right, but neither camp has produced decisive evidence, and a reader should know the question is open.

The word “Set” may be related to the Egyptian word for “strength” or “to set” (as in to set a course). In the Predynastic Period, Set was a sky and storm god, and he was the patron of the falcon-like animal that the Egyptians called the “Sha animal” or “Set animal.” This animal has never been definitively identified by modern zoologists; it has a long, curving snout, squared-off ears, and a forked tail. The best guess at the moment, after the 2015 veterinary reanalysis of some Roman-period mummified specimens, is a now-extinct African wild dog or a particularly large fennec variant, but the identification is provisional.

In early dynastic times, Set was the patron of Upper Egypt. The king of Upper Egypt was sometimes called “He who belongs to Set,” and the first kings of the First Dynasty had Set names, including Djer (“Horus” name) and his successor Djet, whose serekh-name included the Set animal.

Set in the Osiris Myth

The most famous myth involving Set is the murder of Osiris. The full story is told in The Myth of Osiris, Isis, and Set, but a brief summary is essential here.

According to the myth, Set was jealous of his brother Osiris, who had become king of Egypt and brought civilization to the people. Set plotted against Osiris, killed him at a feast, cut his body into pieces, and scattered them across Egypt. Isis retrieved the pieces, reassembled the body, and revived Osiris long enough to conceive their son, Horus. Osiris descended to the underworld, and Horus grew up to avenge his father.

This myth became the central drama of Egyptian religion, and Set became the central antagonist. He was the god of the storm that broke the calm, the desert that surrounded the valley, the foreigner who threatened the borders, and the violence that threatened the order of the world.

The Battle of Horus and Set

After Osiris descended to the underworld, Horus claimed the throne of Egypt. Set refused to give it up, and the two began a long contest that ended in a tribunal before the Ennead of Heliopolis.

The contest was both physical and legal. The two gods:

• Fought in the form of hippopotami in the Nile
• Competed in a race of stone boats
• Wrestled in single combat
• Argued before the Ennead about who had the right to the throne

In the end, Horus won. The Ennead awarded the throne to Horus, and Set was banished to the desert. In some versions of the myth, the two were reconciled and made joint rulers, Set of the desert and Horus of the cultivated land. This reconciliation reflected the Egyptian view that the desert and the cultivated land were both necessary for the world to function.

The Many Faces of Set

Set had many roles in Egyptian religion, and they were often contradictory:

• God of the storm, Set was the bringer of rain, the lord of thunder, the one who roared in the desert. The Egyptians needed the storm to break the heat, but they also feared its violence.
• God of the desert, Set lived in the desert, in the wild and unsettled places, in the lands beyond the borders of Egypt. The desert was both terrifying and useful, it was a source of precious stones, of trade goods, and of the hot, dry air that kept Egypt healthy.
• God of foreign lands, Set was the patron of foreign peoples. The Egyptians considered foreigners dangerous, but they also needed them for trade, for military alliances, and for the exotic goods that came from the east and the south.
• God of the military, Set was the god of soldiers, of war, of the king in battle. Several pharaohs took Set as a royal patron, and the Temple of Set at Tanis was the religious center of the Ramesside court.
• God of the chaos serpent, In some traditions, Set was the warrior who stood on the prow of the sun barque and defended Ra against Apophis. In this role, Set was an ally of the sun god and a defender of cosmic order.

These roles were not contradictory to the Egyptians. They believed that the world needed both order and disorder, and that Set was an essential part of the balance.

The Cult of Set in Historical Time

Set’s cult was concentrated in the eastern Delta, particularly at the city of Tanis. The Ramesside pharaohs of the 19th and 20th Dynasties were devoted to Set, and several of them took Set names:

• Seti I, “Man of Set,” the father of Ramesses II
• Seti II, “Man of Set,” the son of Merneptah
• Sethnakht, “Set is Victorious,” the founder of the 20th Dynasty
• Setepenre, “Chosen of Ra,” a name that combined Set with Ra

The great temple of Set at Tanis was one of the most important religious buildings in the eastern Delta. It was the religious center of the Ramesside court, and its ruins still stand among the most impressive of the Delta cities.

Set and the King

Set’s relationship to the king was complex. The king was the living Horus, the defender of order, and the opponent of Set. But the king also needed Set’s power in battle. Several pharaohs are shown in Egyptian art using the strength of Set against the king’s enemies, including Ramesses II at the Battle of Kadesh, where the god Sutekh is shown driving the king’s chariot into the enemy.

The image of the king as both Horus and Set appears in the Temple of Karnak, where reliefs show the king offering to Amun-Ra while standing on the back of Set, who is shown as a sphinx-like figure. This image combines the king’s role as defender of order with his role as a powerful warrior.

The Demonic Set

In the Late Period, Set’s image was increasingly demonized. The Egyptians, now under Persian and then Greek rule, came to associate Set with the foreign occupiers of Egypt. His image was often depicted as a donkey or a pig, and in the Brooklyn Museum Papyrus, the god of the Persians is shown as a donkey-headed figure being led by Set.

This demonic image was reinforced by the Greeks, who identified Set with the storm-giant Typhon. In Greek mythology, Typhon was a monster with a hundred serpent heads, the son of Gaia and Tartarus, who tried to overthrow Zeus and was defeated. By identifying Set with Typhon, the Greeks turned Set into a figure of pure evil, a satanic monster who threatened the gods.

In early Christian art, the image of Set was sometimes used to depict Satan. The donkey-headed Set, the storm-giant Typhon, and the Christian devil were all seen as aspects of the same enemy of order.

Set in Modern Times

The image of Set has been revived in modern times through the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley, who claimed to have received a message from an entity called “Set” in 1904. Crowley’s Book of the Law identifies Set with the ancient Egyptian god and presents him as a deity of individual will, isolation, and strength. While Crowley’s interpretation is not based on Egyptological research, it has been influential in modern occultism and in popular culture.

To see the archaeological evidence for Set, see the Temple of Set at Tanis and the reliefs of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel, where Set is shown as a god of war.

The Legacy of Set

The story of Set is the story of chaos in Egyptian religion. The Egyptians did not see chaos as a force to be destroyed, they saw it as a force to be balanced. Without the storm, no rain. Without the desert, no contrast. Without the dangerous god, no definition of the safe one.

This dual vision is one of the most distinctive features of Egyptian religion. It is the reason that the gods of chaos were never quite destroyed, and why the Egyptians kept their images alive in ritual and story. The chaos serpent Apophis had to be defeated every night so that the sun could rise, and his defeat was, in itself, a kind of order.