Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

SETH 281SešatGoddess of libraries and the art of writing. Egyptian.Known from 2500 BC, or earlier, until the endof Egyptian history circa AD 400. She is depictedanthropomorphically bearing a seven-pointed staror rosette on her head, sometimes atop a wand andbelow a bow-shaped object. Early in her career shewas associated with the ritual of “stretching thecord” during which boundary poles were rammedinto the ground by the king before measuring outthe foundations of a sanctuary. As a scribe sherecorded the lists of foreign captives and their tributes.At Karnak in Upper Egypt and at Dendara sherecorded the royal jubilees on a notched palm stem.See also SEFKHET-ABWY.SeseChthonic goddess. Ngbandi [Democratic Republicof Congo, central Africa]. One of seven deitiesinvoked at sunrise each day.ŠesmetetEgyptian goddess.See also SAKHMET.SetaFertility goddess. Pokot and Suk [Uganda andwestern Kenya, East Africa]. The consort of thecreator god TORORUT who is embodied in thePleiades. Their children are ILAT, the rain god;ARAWA, the moon goddess; and Topoh, theevening star. The appearance of the Pleiades in thenight sky marks the start of the planting season.SETHORIGIN Egyptian. God of chaos and adversity.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP from 3000 BC orearlier until the end of Egyptian history, circaAD 400.SYNONYMS Set, Setekh, Seteš, SUTEKH, Suty.CENTER(S) OF CULT chiefly a sanctuary in UpperEgypt at Ombos-Naqada, but also in LowerEgypt, in the northeast of the Nile delta.ART REFERENCES sculptures, stone reliefs, wallpaintings, etc.LITERARY SOURCES Pyramid Texts, coffin texts,Book of the Dead, etc.Seth is a deity who generally represents hostilityand violence, but who has also claimed considerablerespect. His parents are GEB and NUT andhis fellow siblings include ISIS, OSIRIS and NEPH-THYS, who at times is also seen as his consort.More typically he is linked with Semitic war goddessesincluding ANAT and ASTARTE. Legend hasit that he tore himself violently from his mother’swomb. He is depicted in human form with thehead of an animal that seems to bear faint similarityto an aardvark with erect ears and a longcurving snout. He is also depicted in wholly animalform, in which case the beast bears no realsimilarity to any living creature, but has a stifflyerect tail. Other animals symbolizing the godinclude the oryx, pig, boar and the hippopotamuswhen it is a disruptive element of the river. Sethis also represented by the crocodile (see Geb).Sometime during the middle of the third millennium,in the II Dynasty, there was a break withthe tradition whereby the kings of Egypt werelinked with the god HORUS. The falcon symbolismof Horus was replaced with that of the creatureof Seth. Several Egyptian rulers followed hiscult closely. Tuthmosis III in the XVIII Dynasty,for example, titled himself “the beloved of Seth.”In the Osirian legend first recorded in the PyramidTexts and later popularized and embellishedby the Greek writer Plutarch, Seth is the jealousadversary of his brother Osiris (see Osiris fordetails). Later he fought an eighty-year war ofattrition with the son of Osiris, the falcon godHorus (see also Horus). During this time, the