the eye of horus

8/7/2019 The Eye of Horus

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Excursus on the Eye of Horus

As the physical manifestation of the sun god, the sun was also called the Eye of Re, andin this form was depicted as a goddess.1

One of the most important myths from ancient Egypt tells of the Eye of Horus becoming

enraged and threatening the world with destruction.2 Described as a time of terrifying

tumult and chaos, the period associated with the Eyes destructive rampage was

commonly mythologized as a warring onslaught on the part of Hathor or her alter ego

Sakhmet. A text known as the Deliverance of Mankind from Destruction finds Hathor

being dispatched by Re to punish mankind:

Then mankind plotted something in the (very) presence of ReThen they [Res

advisors] said in the presence of his majesty: May thy Eye be sent, that it may catch for

thee them who scheme with evil thingsIt should go down as Hathor. So then this

goddess came and slew mankind in the desert.3

Although this text dates to the New Kingdom,4 the myth of the raging Eye-goddess is

evident already in the Pyramid of Unis (circa 2450 BCE) and alluded to repeatedly

throughout the three thousand years of Egyptian history. Spell 316 from the Coffin Texts

emphasizes the terrifying power of the raging goddess:

I am the fiery Eye of Horus, which went forth terrible, Lady of slaughter, greatly

awesome, who came into being in the flame of the sunshine, to whom Re granted

appearings in gloryWhatRsaid about her: Mighty is the fear of you, great is the awe

1J. Allen, The Celestial Realm, in D. Silverman ed., Ancient Egypt(London, 1997), p.

119.2

See J. G. Griffiths, Remarks on the Mythology of the Eyes of Horus, ChroniquedEgypte 33 (1958), pp. 182-193; K. Sethe, Zur Sage vom Sonnenauge (Leipzig, 1912);G. Rudnitzky, Die Aussage ber Das Auge des Horus(Copenhagen, 1956); R. Anthes,Das Sonnenauge in den Pyramidentexten, ZS86 (1961), pp. 1-21.3

J. Wilson, Deliverance of Mankind from Destruction, in J. Pritchard ed., The AncientNear East(Princeton, 1958), p. 4.4

It dates to the time of King Tut. See S. Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion (London,1992), p. 164. According to Miriam Lichtheim, it probably originated in the Middle

Kingdom.


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of you, mighty is your striking-powerall men have been in the sleep of death because

of you and through your powerI am indeed she who shoots.5

Fire and devastation are everywhere said to accompany the Eyes rampage. The

following spell from the Coffin Texts is representative in this regard: The fire will go

up, the flame will go upthe fiery one will be against them as the Eye ofR

.

6

Elsewhere it is said of the warring Eye-goddess: Its flame is to the sky.7

The goddess Sakhmet is described in similar terms and is for all practical purposes

interchangeable with Hathor. In the Bremner-Rhind papyrus, it is Sakhmet who protects

the king and wards off his enemies as the raging Eye:

Thou art (condemned) to this fire of the Eye ofR; it sends forth (?) its fiery blast

against thee in this its name of Wadjet; it consumes thee in this its name of Devouring

Flame; it has power over thee in this its name of Sakhmet; it is fiery against thee in this

its name of Glorious Serpent.8

The image of Sakhmet as a raging goddess is also attested among the texts discovered at

Philae. Here, as elsewhere, Sakhmet is identified as the Eye of Horus:

Sakhmet, the strong one (wsrt), is in Bigeh in her form as the Eye of Horus, the living

[eye] while [spreading fire (?)] with the flame when she goes round, while scorching

the rebels with the heat of her mouth. She is the primeval snake (r t).9

5CTIV: 98-100. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotations from the Coffin Texts are

from R. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Oxford, 2004).6CTV: 264.

7 CTIII:343.8

R. Faulkner, The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus IV, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24(1938), p. 45.9

Quoted from J. F. Borghouts, The Evil Eye of Apophis, Journal of EgyptianArchaeology 59 (1973), p. 136.


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In the texts from Edfu as well, Sakhmet is once again compared to a flame-throwing

serpent and celebrated for her protective powers. Witness the following passage:

O Sekhmet, Eye ofR, great of flame, Lady of protection who envelops her creatorO

Sekhmet who fills the ways with blood, Who slaughters to the limits of all she sees,

Come towards the living image, the living Hawk, Protect him, and preserve him from allevil.10

According to scattered statements preserved in the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, the raging

Eye of Horus was eventually calmed or otherwise pacified, thereby saving the world from

the very brink of destruction. This mysterious calming of the Eye is typically

attributed to the intervention of Onuris or Shu (the two gods were commonly

identified).11 Thus, in the Coffin Texts Shu was described as follows: He subdued the

Eye when it was angry and fiery, that he might lead the Great Ones and have power over

the gods.

12

The same idea is evident in Spell 75:

I have extinguished the fire, I have calmed the soul of her who burns, I have quietened

her who is in the midst of her rage(even she) the fiery one who severed the tresses of

the gods.13

Later accounts also single out Thoth for his role in pacifying the raging Eye. This is the

testimony of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example:

Thoth has fetched the Sacred Eye, having pacified the Eye after Re had sent it away. It

was very angry, but Thoth pacified it from anger after it had been far away.14

10Quoted from A. Roberts, Hathor Rising(Devon, 1995), p. 13.

11H. Junker, Der Auszug der Hathor-Tefnut aus Nubien (Berlin, 1911).

12CTV:155.

13CTI:378.

14R. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead(Austin, 1990), p. 162.


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Much the same scenario is alluded to in the Edfu texts. There it is said of Thoth with

respect to the Eye: He removed its raging, he cooled its fire.15

Unfortunately, the precise circumstances of the pacification of the Eye of Horus are not

spelled out as explicitly as we might wish. What seems clear is that, upon being pacified,

the Eye appears to have been returned or otherwise restored to the god Horus (or Re).

According to an early account in the Pyramid Texts, the Eye-goddess eventually came to

encircle the Horus-star as his royal headband or crown. In the following passage the

mother goddess is addressed by a series of epithets identifying her as the Red Crown

(Nt):

He has come to you, O Nt-crown; he has come to you, O Fiery Serpent; he has come to

you, O Great One; he has come to you, O Great of Magic, being pure for you and fearing

youHe has come to you, O Great of Magic, for he is Horus encircled with the

protection of his Eye, O Great of MagicHo, Crown great of magic! Ho Fiery Serpent!

Grant that the dread of me be like the dread of you; Grant that the fear of me be like the

fear of youIf Ikhet the Great has borne you, Ikhet the Serpent has adorned you; If Ikhet

the Serpent has borne you, Ikhet the Great has adorned you, Because you are Horus

encircled with the protection of his Eye.16

As stated here in no uncertain terms, it is the encircling of Horus by the fire-spewing

uraeus-goddessaddressed as Ikhet the Serpentwhich provides the star-god with his

Eye and thereby equips him with an invincible source of protection. Indeed, it is no

exaggeration to say that, through this act of encircling or conjunction, the mother

goddess invests Horus as the King of the Gods.

Even from this brief survey it is evident that the Eye of Horus plays a prominent role in

Egyptian religion. How, then, are we to explain the peculiar mythology attached to the

15J. G. Griffiths, op. cit., p. 186 apparently citing Edfu II, 16.

16PT194-198.


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Eye of Horus? James Allen, together with Jan Assmann and the vast majority of

Egyptologists, would identify the Eye of Horus with the Sun. Allen summarized the

symbolism attached to the Eye as follows:

The uraeus-goddess is essentially the destructive power of the sun. She is a goddess

because the sun is viewed in this case as the eye of the sun-god (Horus or Re), which isfeminine (jrt). She is normally represented as a cobra (wadjet, also feminine) because of

the notion of a power that can strike and kill: the hieroglyphic representation of this is N6

(sun-disk with cobra) [ ]. The same power is viewed as inherent in the kingsheadgear, which is why it also has a uraeus. The primary thing to keep in mind, however,

is the notion of the eye. In myth she represents both the sun as an eye and its destructive

power. Her common epithet Great of Magic (weret-hekau) derives from the idea of the

eye as conveyor of intentsame notion as the evil eye (which also existed in ancient

Egypt). Through syncretism, she is associated with other major goddesses, such as Isis

and Hathor.17

Yet if the Eye of Horus is to be identified with the Sun, how are we to understand its

intimate relationship to Horus himself? For if Horus is to be identified with the Sun, as

Allen assures us, one is left with the peculiar situation wherein the Eye/Sun is supposed

to encircle or house the Sun (as Horus). Equally perplexing is why the Egyptian

skywatchers would conceptualize one and the same celestial body as simultaneously both

male (Horus) and female (the Eye). Insofar as Horus represents the celestial prototype of

masculine warrior-king, and the Eye the celestial prototype of the mother goddess, this

hypothesis strains credulity to the very limit.

The catastrophic imagery attending the raging of the fire-spewing Eye is also difficult to

understand by reference to the familiar Sun? In what sense is the Sun displaced from

heaven while presenting a terrifying serpentine form? Under what circumstances does

the Sun threaten to destroy the world? What is there about the Suns familiar appearance

17Personal correspondence, 8-29-2010.


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that would lead it to be conceptualized as a serpentine-goddess protecting the Horus-

star by encircling it as a luminous crown?

Far from being a reference to one and the same celestial body, Horuss relationship to the

Eye can only be understood as an interaction between two entirely different stars. On this

matter the evidence is unequivocal: The Eye of Horus is to be identified with the mothergoddess herself and, as such, it represents a wholly different celestial body from that

associated with the masculine Horus (Mars). In Egypt, as around the globe, only one star

fits the bill as the celestial prototype for the mother goddessnamely, Venus.18 In this

conclusion we would agree with Rolf Krauss who, in a number of studies of the Egyptian

astral references, argued that the Eye of Horus is to be identified with the planet Venus.19

Granted the possibility that the Eye of Horus is to be identified with the planet Venus,

how are we to understand the cataclysmic context of the Eyes rampagesi.e., its bizarre

capacity for raining fire and destruction on mankind? Why would the planet Venus be

conceptualized as a raging Eye at one moment and as cooled or calmed on another?

On these all-important questions Krauss had nothing substantive to offer, noting simply:

It remains unclear how the observer understood raging and peacefulness.20

The Egyptian sources provide important evidence on each of these questions. This

testimony, in turn, can then be compared with that from ancient Mesopotamia and

elsewhere, which describes the planet Venus in similar fashionindeed, as a comet-like

agent of disaster.21

Especially instructive in this regard is PT 1147, wherein it is reported: I am this head-

bandof red colour which went forth from Ikhet the Great; I am this Eye of Horus which

18E. Cochrane, The Many Faces of Venus (Ames, 2001).

19R. Krauss, The Eye of Horus and the Planet Venus: Astronomical and Mythological

References, in J. Steele & A. Imhausen eds., Under One Sky (Mnster, 2002), pp. 193-208.20

Ibid., p. 201.21

See here the discussion in E. Cochrane, Fossil Gods and Forgotten Worlds (Ames,2010), pp. 77-123.


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is stronger than men and mightier than the gods. Here the all-powerful Eye of Horus is

identified with a head-band [sd] emanating from the Ikhet-Serpent. The same head-band

is alluded to in another passage from the Pyramid Texts: So that I may ferry across in it

together with that head-bandof green and of red cloth which has been woven from the

Eye of Horus in order to bandage therewith that finger of Osiris that has become

diseased.

22

Properly understood, the information provided by PT 1147 and 1202 supplements and

clarifies that found in PT 194-198, thereby shedding considerable light on the

fundamental nature of the Ikhet-Serpent and the Eye of Horus. The Egyptian word

translated as head-band in these two passages issd, determined with the following

glyph:3 . If Horus is to be identified with a celestial body, as all Egyptologists agree,

how are we to understand this encircling head-band? This question is directly related to

another: Why would a headband be likened to or identified with the terrifying Eye of

Horus which is stronger than men and mightier than the gods? Stranger still is the

statement that the sd-headband was woven by the Eye of Horus.

The key to understanding such traditions is provided by the fact that, in addition to head-

band, the word sdalso denotes a meteor or shooting star.23 There are a number of

Egyptian texts, in fact, which speak of an sd-star streaking across the sky and raining

fire on the kings enemies. Thutmose III, for example, is likened to a shooting star that

scatters its flame of fire (sd stj bsw=f n st).24 As Wainwright pointed out in his

discussion of the term, the terrifying nature of the sd-star is a decided point of emphasis

in the Egyptian texts: Its dangerous nature is certified by the desire of the Pharaoh to

seem to his enemies in battle to be like thesd.25

22PT1202-1203.

23R. Hannig, gyptisches Wrterbuch I(Mainz, 2003), p. 1244, entry 30768. See also R.

Caminos, The Chronicle of Prince Osorkon, AnOr37, pp. 81-82.24

As translated by K. Goebs, Crowns in Egyptian Funerary Literature (Oxford, 2008), p.373.25

G. Wainwright, Letopolis, JEA 18 (1932), p. 162.


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It is obvious at once that the sd-stars propensity for scattering flames of fire and

inspiring terror is precisely mirrored in descriptions of the raging goddess as the Eye of

Horus. Recall again the previously cited description of Sakhmet: Sakhmet, the strong

one (wsrt), is in Bigeh in her form as the Eye of Horus, the living [eye] while

[spreading fire (?)] with the flame when she goes round, while scorching the rebels withthe heat of her mouth.

So, too, does the Eye of Horus mirror the sd-star in being a shooting star:

I am the fiery Eye of Horus, which went forth terrible, Lady of slaughter, greatly

awesomeI am indeed she who shoots.26

Given the fact that the sd-headband is specifically identified with the Eye of Horus

(Venus), it is necessary to consider the possibility that the two celestial forms were

related. This, in fact, is precisely our claim: it was the planet Venus itself that formerly

presented a comet-like appearance while assuming a serpentine form and spewing fire

across the sky. Indeed, it was the terrifying rampage of the Venus-comet which provided

the historical prototype for Egyptian descriptions of the sd-star.*

If the historical reconstruction offered here is well-founded, it stands to reason that

Venuss comet-like history must inform the Egyptian descriptions of the raging Eye.

Instructive in this regard is the following account from Uniss pyramid, wherein the

flame from Horuss Eye is likened to an all-encompassing storm:

I [Horus] will put flame in my eye, and it will encompass you and set storm among the

doers of (evil) deeds, and its fiery outburst among these primeval ones. I will smite away

the arms of Shu which support the sky.27

26CTIV:98.

27PT298-299.

Ev Cochrane 12/13/10 4:06 PM

Comment: It will be noted that ancient

languages typically dont distinguish betw

the concepts meteor and comet: Both

denote a celestial body moving along an e

orbit while displaying fireworks and/or

sporting a tail.


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The mere fact that Shus arms collapse as a result of the raging of Horuss flame-

throwing Eye confirms the catastrophic nature of the celestial events in question (as the

World Pillar, Shu was thought to uphold the cosmos on his two massive arms). In

addition to shaking heaven from its foundations, the rampaging Eye is said to let loose a

storm (nn) on the evil-doers.* As for how we are to understand the apocalyptic

storm in question, an important clue is provided by a famous Spell from the CoffinTexts (335), wherein the same word is employed to denote the wrath of the raging Eye-

goddess: I raised up the hair [nw] from the Sacred Eye at the time of its wrath [nn].28

Here the wrath of the raging Eye is evidently linked to its hair. The at first sight

puzzling reference to a stellar Eye with hair is further illuminated by a gloss appended to

the same spell:

What is the Sacred Eye at its time of wrath? Who raised the hair from it? It is the right

Eye of Re when it was wroth with him after he had sent it on an errand. It was Thoth who

raised the hair from it.29

Here the catastrophe-bringing wrath (nn) of the raging Eye goddess is unequivocally

linked to her hair (nw).* Yet what celestial body apart from a comet presents the

appearance of a star with hair? As we have documented elsewhere, moreover, the

Egyptian imagery surrounding the raging Eye-goddess has remarkable parallels around

the globe and is in perfect accord with the ancient testimony associated with comets.30

Thus it is that the terrifying appearance of a comet was commonly likened to disheveled

or fiery hair, the onset of storms, terrible flames, a spewing serpentine monster, and

luminous crowns.31

28 CTIV: 238.29

R. Faulkner, op. cit., p. 263.30

See here The Venus-comet, elsewhere on this website.31

U. DallOlmo, Latin Terminology Relating to Aurorae, Comets, Meteors and Novae,Journal for the History of Astronomy 11 (1980), pp. 16-17. See also E. Cochrane, TheMany Faces of Venus (Ames, 2001), pp. 113-151.

Ev Cochrane 12/17/10 10:13 AM

Ev Cochrane 12/17/10 10:16 AM

Comment: It will be noted that the sam

word denotes an apocalyptic storm througthe Pyramid Texts. See here CT4:40; 4:35:210; 6:306; 7:376.

Comment: It will be noted that Budge

translated the word nn as storm: I raisthe hair at the time of storms in the sky. W

then is it? It is the right Eye of Ra in its r

against him after he hath made it to depart

Note also the etymological relationshipbetween n(w), hair, and nyt, storm,

latter of which occasionally substitutes foSee the discussion in R. Faulkner, The CofTexts (Oxford, 2004), p. 86.


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To summarize our findings: A wealth of evidence confirms that the Eye of Horus is to be

identified with the planet Venus. In recounting the terrifying rampages of the Eye-

goddess the earliest Egyptian texts appear to have preserved innumerable important

details about the recent history of Venus. According to Utterance 220-221 from the

Pyramid Texts, the Eye-goddess provided a luminous headband to the star-god Horus by

encircling him as a serpentine form (Ikhet the Serpent). It is our view that the Eye-goddesss crowning of the Horus-star has reference to dramatic astronomical events in

which she appeared to encircle Horus (Mars) with a comet-like tail (sd). Hence the

otherwise inexplicable situation wherein one wordsddenotes at once Ikhets

headband as well as a meteor or flame-scattering star. The fact that the same word is

elsewhere determined by the following glyphconfirms its intimate relationshipwith the uraeus-serpent that came to form the encircling crown of Horus.

32On the basis

of this evidence we conclude that the Eye of Horus, Ikhet-serpent, and sd-headband are

alternate names for the same celestial formthe Venus-comet.

32W. Barta, Zur Bedeutung des Stirnbands-Diadems, Gttinger Miszellen 72 (1984), p.

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