Hōro (Horus)

HORUS. - Egyptian deity [Egyptian Hr (w); Gk. Ὡρος] originating in the Delta; his original iconographic form was that of a falcon. The cult and fame of H. spread rapidly from the period of the pre-Thinite rulers (3rd millennium B.C.), when Egypt was still divided into two kingdoms. Since these rulers adopted H. as their dynastic god, they were subsequently called precisely "servants of H." From that time the pharaoh was constantly regarded as an incarnation of H.

Through a syncretistic process common in Egyptian religion, H. was from the most remote antiquity assimilated to or substituted for other deities, so that at Heliopolis under the name Hr-'b.t (Harakhte = "H. of the horizon") he became the sky god depicted anthropomorphically and with a falcon's head; at Edfu he was worshipped in the form of a solar disk flanked by two spread falcon wings; at Letopolis he took on the appearance of a warrior god called Hr-wr (Haroeris = "the great H.").

The legend of Isis and Osiris (v.) also helped to increase the popularity of H., who was considered the son of the divine couple. It was told that the child H., born after the murder of his father carried out by Seth, succeeded after a bitter struggle in claiming the rights of succession to the throne of Egypt. The names taken by H. in the legend are Hr-s'-s.t (Harsiesis = "H. son of Isis") and Hr-p'-grd (Harpocrates = "H. the child").