Set, also known as Seth and Suetekh, was the Egyptian god of
war, chaos, and storms, brother of Osiris, Isis, and Horus the Elder, uncle to
Horus the Younger, and brother-husband to Nephthys. His other consort was the
goddess Tawaret, a hippo-headed deity who presided over fertility and
childbirth.
He is one of the first five gods created by the union of Geb
(earth) and Nut (sky) after the creation of the world. His name is usually
translated as "instigator of confusion" and "destroyer" and
he was associated with disorder, foreign lands and people, and the color red.
He is sometimes depicted as a red-haired beast with a forked
tail and cloven hooves or a shaggy red dog-like beast known as a sha (or, to
modern-day scholars, as the Set Animal) which some scholars claim was modeled
on the Saluki breed while others maintain was a purely mythological creature
imagined specifically to represent Set whose other symbols were the griffin,
hippopotamus, crocodile, and tortoise (though he was primarily associated with
the serpent). His epithets include "Lord of the Desert" and
"Ruler of the South" as he was originally a god of Upper Egypt (the
south) and the barren lands beyond Egypt's borders.
In the Early Dynastic
Period of Egypt Circa 3150 bce to 2613
BCE. he was an important - and
benevolent - god of Upper Egypt whose name was invoked for love spells and
inscribed on amulets which served as love charms. He was also the deity who
saved the sun god Ra from the serpent Apophis, an evil creature who tried to
stop the sun god's journey through the night sky toward dawn.
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