Always Worth Re-reading, And I Also Fave The Version In Which It Was Consensual - Makes Far More Sense

Always worth re-reading, and I also fave the version in which it was consensual - makes far more sense to me.

The Contendings of Horus and Set (and homosexuality in Ancient Egypt)

Chester Beatty Papyrus I, a manuscript in hieratic containing the story of the contendings of Horus and Set

(The image is the Chester Beatty Papyrus I, written in hieratic, containing the mentioned story)

In my last post I (affectionately) called Set "the Gay Uncle of the Egyptian Pantheon" and promised to elaborate more on it in another post.

(CW: sexuality talk, bits of violence and- lettuce. No strong language)

First, a "little" foreword on homosexuality in Ancient Egypt: this is a very complicated subject as I gathered since, well- we don't know very much about it. The few accounts that survived are either disputed or offer little information on the general attitude towards same-sex relationship outside the single case.

It's also difficult to talk about heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality in ancient times at all since the way we know them is a relatively modern concept (the word homosexuality is first attested in 1868 on a letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by Karl-Maria Kertbeny) and before christianity became mainstream the biggest concerns were at best pointed towards the practices (mostly, Taking It™).

For everything else, relationships were just relationships.

The best known example of a same-sex couple were these guys, since it's likely the earliest recorded in history:

A picture of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum painted in a nose-to-nose pose, usually meaning a kiss.

They're Khnumhotep (ẖnm.w-ḥtp(.w)) and Niankhkhnum (nj-ꜥnḫ-ẖnm.w), two royal servants and confidants who had the prestigious task to be the king's head manicurists. In their mastaba tomb in Saqqara are depicted in poses traditionally reserved for couples - like holding hands, embracing and kissing.

However, both of them had wives (Khenut and Khentikawes) and 6 children each.

Ancient Egyptians were very passionate about fertility - which is understandable considering how easily people could die any day for any reason back then. The more children you had and the more the chances that at least one of them survived to adulthood and could carry on jobs and duties.

So as long as you were a (re)productive member of society, it wasn't a big deal that you enjoyed / preferred the company of an individual of your same sex.

The big deal was, as I mentioned, Taking It™ for two main reasons:

Power dynamics. Assuming an active role during the intercourse meant at the same time asserting your dominance and/or humiliating the person on the receiving end of it

Something that I understood as "guy takes up the role of a woman during the intercourse but with none of her reproductive power" which considering how massively important being fertile was to them... well. Makes it a practice as sterile as the desert

And guess who was the god of deserts? our guy Set

The Contendings Of Horus And Set (and Homosexuality In Ancient Egypt)

(and also storm, disorder and violence to be precise)

His name was written either stš, swtḫ, swtj or stẖ depending on the time period (the Greeks just went with Seth)

He also loved eating this particular vegetable a normal amount (keep it in mind, we'll need that later):

Set was one of the children of Geb (the god of the Earth) and Nut (goddess of the sky) along with Osiris, Isis and Nephthys - who he was married to.

Osiris was king at the time and upheld the rule of ma'at (ideal natural order, fundamental concept of AE culture) along with Isis, his wife-sister.

At some point Set murdered Osiris, tore his body into pieces and scattered them all around Egypt. Reasons for this act may have been:

Osiris kicked him

Osiris had an affair with Nephthys

Isis and Nephthys in the form of either a falcon or a kite searched for all pieces and with the help of Anubis put them all together in what is considered the first mummy in Egyptian tradition. Isis uses her wings to briefly fan new life in Osiris' body and the two conceive a child, Horus.

Osiris' resurrection was not permanent and after his time was out he became ruler of the Duat (the realm of the dead), while Isis raises Horus in secret until he was old enough to come back to challenge Set for his throne.

The dispute took the form of a series of competitions (like racing with boats or fighting each other in the form of hippopotami) and legal judgement before the assembled council of gods, the Ennead.

During one of the competitions Isis tried to help her son while he was locked in combat with Set but accidentally spears Horus - he got FURIOUS and beheaded his mother. Then tried to fix it by sticking on the body a head of a cow. No one will ever notice, amright? (This gives the mythological origin of the cow horn headdress Isis sometimes is depicted wearing)

Horus repeatedly defeats Set in the various competitions and is largely favoured by the the other gods, but the head of the Ennead was Geb and Geb liked Set so they were stuck in this limbo situation of tie for years.

and then - brace yourself. Now it comes the key moment of this story.

Set and Horus have sex.

I'm serious

The details of this obviously varied from account to account (as most of myths in Ancient Egypt, it was almost expected to have different variations of it depending on the time period and place)

According to one account, it was deliberately only to humiliate him

According to another, he genuinely wanted to bang his nephew other than the act of dominance / humiliation thing, he didn't take no as an answer and got him drunk

According to another one again it was consensual, Horus agreed on condition that Set would've given him part of his strength (my fave)

But Horus was a smart birb and he either caught Set's seed with his hands (don't ask me how) or removed it in secret, so to make Set believe the act was successful. Horus tells his mom about what happened and the morning after they plan something.

Horus wanks on some lettuce and Isis serves it to a clueless Set.

Who eats it all.

The next time the Ennead were called to judgement, Set mentions having laid with Horus as a mean to demonstrate he has asserted his dominance over him so he had the right to claim the throne for himself. Horus disagrees. Geb verifies who of the two had the other's seed in his body and-

Set did.

Horus thus won the dispute

They eventually reconcile with each other and shared the lands to rule (which might have been fertile lands of the Nile to Horus and foreign deserts to Set, or one had the land and the other the sky, or the two traditional halves of the country). With this reconciliation, the dualities they represent are also reconciled into a united whole restoring order after the conflict.

(according to other accounts Geb played the bitch and gave sole reign to Horus, to other much later when Egypt was a bit in a bad place Set was utterly defeated, exiled and/or destroyed)

Funny thing is that Set actually got pregnant from the tainted lettuce and gave birth to either:

A golden disk on his forehead

Thot

Thot's moon disk (in versions where Thot is present during the dispute)

Well ancient Egyptian mythology sure is something huh