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By Root 582 0

and evil is not so clear-cut as are other versions. Unlike Lucifer and Ahriman, Set did not become a devil after he fell. He was a good god and a bad god, and he could turn from one to the other with a speed that makes Dr. Jekyll look like a tyro. When Set was defeated by Horus he was not cast into outer darkness. Even Isis pleaded for him, and he was given the desert and foreign lands as his domain. As the murderer of Osiris, Set was evil, and the pilgrims to Abydos used to watch his defeat, which was reenacted in a great annual mystery play, with happy cries of “Go to it, Horus!”—or something like that. But in his other manifestation, Set was a perfectly good god and was worshiped like any other. Other cosmologies knew a similar dichotomy; the Aztec Tezcatlipoca was both a sun god and the sun god’s diabolic opponent; the slim huntress Diana could also be the frightful triform Hecate, goddess of witches and black magic.

Horus the falcon is so thoroughly identified with the king that it comes as something of a shock to see a heretical monarch rejecting Horus in favor of his bête noire, Set. This Second Dynasty iconoclast was named, originally, the Horus Sekhemib. We mentioned, while discussing the kings of the First Dynasty, that the Horus name was written in a serekh with a falcon on top. When King Sekhemib changed his Horus name he changed the whole structure. His name became Peribsen, and his serekh was topped by the Set-animal instead of the Horus falcon.

Serekhs of Sekhemib (left) and Peribsen (right)

This change of ritual, which looks so small on a stone seal or stela, must have signified far-reaching and dramatic events. Many of the First Dynasty royal monuments, both at Sakkara and at Abydos, were set afire in ancient times, perhaps during this very period. The next king, Khasekhem, is known for his military exploits, and several campaigns were fought in the north. There is certainly a suggestion of a battle for the crown, if not outright civil war. The last king of the dynasty, Khasekhemui, has a name that means “Appearance of the Two Powers.” The two powers, in this case, may well have been the old enemies Horus and Set; the king’s name is, uniquely, surmounted by both gods standing in amity upon the serekh. Possibly Khasekhem and Khasekhemui are the same king, with the change of name signalizing a reconciliation—forcible or diplomatic—between the two factions that had been in opposition. The fact that no tomb has been found for Khasekhem at Abydos, although the tombs of Peribsen and Khasekhemui are there, supports this theory.

Serekh of Khasekhemui

The wars of religion in our own era are adequate proof that men may take up weapons over an idea, but it is rather startling to find the easygoing, tolerant Egyptians fighting about their gods when they could, and did, accept new additions to the pantheon without a murmur of complaint or confusion. Was the Set rebellion, like Akhenaton’s later heresy, an attempt at exclusiveness—an attempt, in short, at mono the ism? Well—no. There is no evidence for such a conclusion. We may never know the details of, or the reasons for, the religious upheaval of the Second Dynasty, and one must always bear in mind that religion can be, and often is, a cloak for more cynical power struggles. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Two

HOUSES OF ETERNITY

Cartouche of Khufu

KING DJOSER’S MAGICIAN

One of the advantages of armchair travel is that we can spare ourselves the physical discomforts attendant upon the real thing. Let us, then, avoid the dusty paths of Sakkara and imagine that we are already at that site looking up—and I do mean up—at a fantastic construction called the Step Pyramid.

It comes at the very beginning of the Third Dynasty, this large architectural achievement; and at first glance it seems unbelievable that the people who were playing around with mud bricks and holes in the ground during the Second Dynasty could have leaped so swiftly out of the hole and into the sky, with cut stone as their ladder. There is a lot of sand