Horus Quotes

“In ancient Egyptian culture the duality of deities – most often manifested in their male/female relationships – was an integral aspect of the belief system. This duality appeared in Nun, the limitless ocean of potentiality out of which the universe was born. Within those waters, the male and female aspects appeared as frogs (males) and snakes (females). There were four couples, according to the beliefs at Hermopolis, making up the eight most important gods of “pre-creation” referred to at this cult center as the “Ogdoad”. Each of these gods and goddesses acquired names and, as a unit, they represented the earliest aspects of reality.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“some scholars believe that Ptah was only capable of such creation after he borrowed the heart and tongue from Amun, the ultimate creator; as such it was Ptah’s being the personification of “creative process” that directed and guided Amun’s creative abilities.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“the universe is created by the god Ptah, who “conceived the elements of creation in his heart and pronounced them into existence with the divine words as he pronounced their names.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“The Gods as Concepts Like in many polytheistic religious beliefs, the gods of ancient Egypt were neither omnipotent nor omnipresent, despite appearing in many locations simultaneously in some of the myths.[16] In fact, the ancient Egyptians used to worship the deity of the location they found themselves in, since each deity was more or less “present” in each part of the country. They were decidedly human in their relationships with each other. Just like the ancient Greek gods, they fought and argued, made love and married, and were ultimately capable of death, even if this meant that they would simply be reborn later on. Each god and goddess was “responsible” for an aspect of reality the ancient Egyptians encountered every day but, when they needed to, they could share their powers with another deity, which resulted in a kind of merging of the two. This was the case for the “dying sun god” who merged with Osiris so as to borrow his regenerative power and be “reborn” the following day.[17]”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“which all Greeks considered to be much more ancient than their own. It was his scholarly approach and earnest desire to record the “truth” that makes his already interesting story worthy of study as a genuine account of the myth of Isis and Osiris.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“Plutarch’s account is late in terms of the wider history of Egyptian mythology, it is a surprisingly accurate take on the formation of the myth of Isis and Osiris, dating back to around 600 years before his arrival.[15] Of course, this does not make it an accurate account of the much earlier story of Osiris, but since describing his death and dismemberment was not a taboo for a Greek, his later account did not suffer from the obliqueness of the early sources. Moreover, although Plutarch was not an Egyptian, he was an excellent scholar of foreign mythology. For him, the reason for writing down the myth of Isis and Osiris was to try and find a “fundamental truth” to the myths of both his own culture (of which he was a priest at Delphi for the remaining 30 years of his life) and that of his neighboring culture,”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“Unas Pyramid Text Possibly the next most influential source came from the Roman era. Plutarch was a Greek historian and priest who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd century CE. He traveled to Egypt, it seems, but once he arrived there he was incapable of reading any hieroglyphs, so he largely depended on conversations with the locals and also a smattering of earlier literature that speculated on the identity of Egyptian gods and compared them with the Greeks’ own pantheon. For instance, to the ancient Greeks the god Amun was Zeus, and the same applied to Hermes and Thoth, Apollo and Horus, and Dionysus and Osiris. The connection between Greece and Egypt was an ancient one and continues to have an influence on modern readers since many of the cult centers of ancient Egypt are referred to by their ancient Greek names, such as Hermopolis the City of Hermes, rather than their ancient Egyptian names, most likely because of the troublesome nature of transliterating Egyptian words.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“In terms of the oldest description of death, modern scholars have the Pyramid Texts. These were initially inscribed on the walls of the 5th Dynasty pyramid of Unas at Saqqara,[13] and they documented and gave advice to the king on his journey into the afterlife. These inscriptions were later copied onto other pyramids from the Old Kingdom and have therefore survived in good condition”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“myths assumed their readers were knowledgeable about the stories’ details, they opted to refer to myths obliquely out of a sense of decorum.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“inscriptions on pyramid walls (such as the Old Kingdom’s “Pyramid Texts”), painted on the inside of coffins (such as the Middle Kingdom’s “Coffin Texts”), or texts written on papyri (such as the famous “Book of the Dead,” which dates back to the Second Intermediate Period).”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“After that, Atum was capable of making the waters of Nun recede away from him, making him rise above them and become “what remained” or the “mound of creation.” It’s important to take note of the fact that there was no creation until Atum inhaled life and justice. Therefore without maat and her dualistic counterpart, there would have been no world, and that is the reason for maat and isfet’s ubiquity, as well as the acceptance of chaos in the world as seen by the ancient Egyptians. After Atum had separated himself from Nun, the children he kept inside, notably Shu and maat/isfet, often represented as a form of the goddess Tefnut, were now separated from their father, and Tefnut would go on to become the mother of all the gods.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“The general creation story contains within it two aspects that are crucial to understanding all of the myths of ancient Egypt: maat and isfet. Isfet represents chaos or disorder, generally speaking, and it was seen as a fundamental element of everything in existence. There was no notion of trying to eradicate isfet from their general lives in ancient Egypt; after all, it was said to be one of the elements that was present in the limitless ocean at the dawn of creation. The only desire for ancient Egyptians was that isfet never became more prevalent than maat, its opposite: justice. Maat was often depicted as a goddess wearing a feather on her head, which was also the hieroglyph that represented her.[8] She, or simply the concept of justice, was believed to be present in all aspects of life and if it was broken by anyone, there would be a punishment. According to the Middle Kingdom “Coffin Text” it was believed that Atum, the “Great Finisher” of creation,[9] inhaled maat in order to gain his consciousness: “Inhale your daughter Maat [said Nun to Atum] and raise her to your nostril so that your consciousness may live. May they not be far from you, your daughter Maat and your son Shu, whose name is “life” … it is your son Shu who will lift you up.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“One such concept is that of the creation of the universe. Generally speaking, there was a limitless dark ocean of “chaos” called Nun, out of which a god was born who instigated creation.[6] The different cult centers felt at liberty to amend or augment that concept to incorporate local tastes and allegiances to deities. Later on, during the period of the New Kingdom, the cult center of Thebes gained prominence and the priests there tried to unify the earlier traditions of Egypt. In this attempt, Amun was the creator god but the Thebans also incorporated the traditions of the major cult centers like Hermopolis, Memphis and Heliopolis, which often seem quite disparate accounts to the modern reader but were quite ingeniously brought together at Thebes around 1200 BCE.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris

“from Dynasty V (2498-2345 BCE) is a fairly complete list starting from the last Predynastic kings, but it sadly ends in the middle of Dynasty V. The Royal List of Karnak goes all the way to Tuthmosis III (1504-1450 BCE) and is especially useful in that it records many of the minor rulers of the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was divided into two or more states. The Royal List of Abydos skips these kings but runs all the way to the reign of Seti I (1291-1278 BCE). The Royal Canon of Turin is a badly damaged papyrus dating to around 1200 BCE that gives the precise length of reign of each ruler, often down to the day. Many portions of the list are missing, however. Discoveries of other texts and radiocarbon dating have helped refine the dates, but there are still competing theories regarding the chronology, and all have both merits and problems. For the sake of consistency, this work uses the chronology set forth by Egyptologist Peter A. Clayton in his various works. The reader should note that while Clayton’s chronology is a popular one, it is by no means universally accepted.”
― Charles River Editors, Horus: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Egyptian God Who Was the Son of Isis and Osiris