(West Asian mythology)

Representations on gravestones in Upper Egypt, dating from the third millennium BC, attribute to Seth a donkey-like appearance, with long legs, long and broad ears, and a short upright tail. But over the centuries the god was transformed into a fabulous beast, not unlike a massive dog. Seth was ‘lord of Upper Egypt’, his sacred city being Ombos, and in that capacity he became a rival to his nephew Horus. Myth recounts the struggle between these adversaries, following the murder of Osiris by Seth, who temporarily seized power in Upper Egypt. By the Greeks Seth was identified with Typhon, a huge monster who fought with Zeus, was defeated and buried in Sicily under Mount Aetna, whose volcanic rumblings and eruptions were the monster's struggles. Nepthys, the wife of Seth and sister of Osiris, was associated with the rites of burial, since she and Isis acted as guardians of the head and feet of the coffin. Nephthys means ‘the lady of the castle’.

During the Hyksos occupation of the delta Seth enjoyed a short supremacy, because the Semitic invaders adopted him as their own god but, unlike the pharaohs, regarded him as the only god and even attempted to impose his cult on the rest of Egypt which had retained its independence. The hekaukhasut, ‘the rulers of forein lands’, or the Hyksos to us, found that Seth had much in common with their own Baals. Moreover, the city of Avaris, their capital, was an old cult centre of the god. After the expulsion of the Hyksos about 1570 BC the country was reunited by the Pharaoh Amosis and the other Egyptian gods restored. However, an indirect legacy of Seth's elevation may have been the attempt made by Amenophis IV to replace all the gods with Aton, the solar disc.

A Dictionary of World Mythology. Copyright © Arthur Cotterell 1979, 1986, 2003. All rights reserved.