LORD OF THE OASIS

THE GOD SETH IS ONE of the most enigmatic deities in the Egyptian pantheon. He was regarded as a god of confusion and disorder, and was often depicted in the form of one of many animals, including a hippopotamus, a falcon, and, most frequently, the “Seth animal,” a long-snouted creature with a forked tail and pert ears. The deity embodied both positive and negative aspects, but even his violent and destructive tendencies could be used for the good of the cosmos. Seth’s dual nature appears in the earliest texts containing myths about the Egyptian gods, the Pyramid Texts, which covered the walls of funeral chambers built for Old Kingdom pharaohs and queens at the necropolis of Saqqara in the late third millennium B.C. In a later collection of spells called the Coffin Texts, which date to the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030–1640 B.C.), Seth spears Apep, the serpent of chaos, to protect the sun god, Ra, and preserve the established order of the universe. “Seth was the only god strong and aggressive enough to drive off Apep’s attack and prevent him from swallowing the sun,” says Egyptologist Ian Taylor. “Without Seth, the sun would not have risen the following morning.” Seth also served as a divine protector of pharaohs, and was portrayed in this role in painted coronation scenes and images carved on thrones throughout the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom (ca. 1550–1070 B.C.).

The Pyramid Texts also contain early allusions to darker myths. In several texts, driven by jealousy, Seth is said to have murdered his brother Osiris, one of the god-kings of early Egypt. In another, he enters into a protracted battle gods adjudicate the