Most Egyptians preferred not to wear headgear in general, but helmets were sometimes used in war. The ordinary soldier relied on his hair to protect him. It would be oiled and twisted into tight braids or curls in the hope of at least partly cushioning any glancing blows, though the efficacy of this is debatable, to say the least. Helmets made of wood and ivory platelets were sometimes worn by mercenaries, or by soldiers who had looted them from fallen opponents. The Sherden, fighting as mercenaries, wore helmets decorated with the horns and a solar disc associated with Hathor.
Other forms of armour, such as greaves and breastplates, were not used in Ancient Egypt, but gauntlets were used by charioteers. These were made of thick leather, and intended mostly to provide extra grip on the reins. Some surviving gauntlets, however, have a thick enough back to turn a knife blade, and possibly even a weak strike from a sword.
The original cutting axe from the Old Kingdom was retained, but alongside it the Middle Kingdom Egyptians introduced a new Hyksos-originated weapon, the penetrative axe. This was a single-handed weapon, with a cast metal head of bronze or copper attached to a short haft of around 20-30 inches.
In other kingdoms of the era, axe-heads were cast with an ‘eye’ through the back of the blade so that the haft could be fitted into it directly. In Egypt, it was attached by means of a mortise and tenon fitting and then secured more tightly by being tied on by leather thongs. In some ways this can be seen as a step backwards, towards the way in which stone or flint axe-heads were attached to their hafts in Neolithic times, but it also meant that the soldier in the field could maintain or replace the axe-head without any metalworking skills.
As the khopesh had evolved from a cutting axe into a single-handed weapon by adding a handgrip to the long curved blade, so the penetrative axe became a single-handed weapon by having the blade compressed and attached to a much shorter haft. This meant that the soldier was free to use a shield in his other hand, or indeed to dual-wield two axes.
The axe was usually deployed against an enemy force that was broken or fleeing after taking casualties from archery or spears. In this, and in the execution of prisoners, it replaced the mace. An excellent close-combat weapon, the axe could also be used to foul or pull away an enemy’s shield, and could easily split a helmet or shield of the era. The axe eventually fell into disuse as the khopesh and its straight-bladed successors took over as the infantry’s close-combat weapon of choice. Eventually, after the 18th Dynasty, the battle axe was almost entirely reduced to being a ceremonial weapon.
Of course, mere mortals have always fought each other, and in 525 BC, Egypt’s armies clashed with the Persian army of Cambyses II. The Persians, besides superior numbers, had the advantage of being led by a former commander of the pharaoh’s army, the Greek mercenary, Phanes.
As well as being an excellent weapon for engaging armoured enemies, the penetrative axe could be used for non-combat purposes such as felling trees, or butchery. As with all things Egyptian, ritual and ceremonial versions were developed for royal wear, with extensive artwork on the head. There are many bas-reliefs of pharaohs preparing to smite prisoners with this type of axe, although for some reason the artistic form of the time always has the edge turned away from the victim, as if he is about to be struck with the back or haft rather than the edge.
The most distinctive Egyptian shield, seen in many tomb paintings, scrolls, and wooden models, was the rectangular shield, five feet high, with straight edges on three sides and a pointed arch on top. These shields were basically wooden, some solid flat boards with cowhide leather held down on the outer surface; others were merely frames across which cowhide had been stretched. Amusingly, paintings and surviving models show that the shields were painted with the blotchy patterns of the cowhides from which they came.
These smaller shields could also be carried by a chariot archer when not shooting, but there was no room on an Egyptian chariot for a separate shield-bearer, so the driver and archer would have to rely on their rate of shooting to keep enemies at bay when actually in combat.
This type of shield was useful to protect spear-carrying soldiers from reed arrows and the like, as the soldier could stop and crouch behind it, totally hiding himself. However, the size of the shield made it unwieldy to use for blocking against swords or axes in close-quarter combat. Some soldiers were deployed along with the archers as shield-bearers, to keep the archers on their side covered from arrows or slingshot stones launched by the enemy.
Egyptian military encampments were ringed with these shields, propped up. This kept animals out, horses in, and would clatter when falling if anyone entered the camp. It also meant the men’s shields were always ready to be taken up at a moment’s notice.
In the second millennium BC, Egypt began to use smaller, more manoeuvrable weapons such as swords and penetrative axes, and to face enemies who used them. This meant that a soldier needed to be able to manoeuvre his shield in order to block with it and protect himself more quickly and with more agility than the old shields would allow. So the cowhide shield was made smaller, and the arched top made into a wider curve. Round shields were carried by the Sea Peoples, some of whom fought for Egypt as mercenaries after the time of Rameses III.
Metal shields were also known, but were more for ceremonial use by the king, as they were less practical as defensive equipment. Because wood and leather are compressible, where bronze is not, they could take impacts from arrows, spears or swords without breaking. Bronze shields were more brittle, and could be split completely by a blow from a khopesh.
ENDURING LEGACY
Egyptian Mythology: Purpose and Relevance
Like most of the world’s religions, Egyptian mythology served a mixture of purposes. It told stories that attempted to explain the mysteries of creation, showed how much the gods were like people, and also how different from mortals they were. Unlike many of the world’s mythologies, however, Egyptian mythology was also designed to lead by example. Thus much of Egyptian life was dedicated to preparing for death and afterlife, and its mythology – in the forms of various funeral texts – reflects this by being a guide to how people should prepare. The oldest religious texts in the world, the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts (so called because they were painted inside pyramids and on coffins), and Book Of Going Forth By Day – better known as the Book Of The Dead – were illustrated guidelines and spells designed to give the deceased the correct responses and answers to the tests they would face in the Duat, and taught the deceased’s relatives how to help him or her get through the trials of the underworld.
A section of the Book of the Dead showing Osiris presiding over the weighing of the heart. (The Art Archive / Alamy)
This is certainly the element of the mythology that has most survived to the present day, but it is not all that was intended. Of course, we do not know what messages failed to survive, because they are lost, and we no longer have the context that the Ancient Egyptians had. We can see some other fragments, though. As one example, a story like this one about crossing the Duat deals with the temperaments of animals, warning those living near rivers that hippopotami are to be treated with caution even though they are not carnivorous creatures.
Likewise, on a practical level, the story of the death and resurrection of Osiris included a guide to preserving the deceased for their journey, in the form of mummification. So, what of the actual rivalry between Set and Horus afterwards? Is this just an exciting story, or did it have a real-world relevance to the Egyptians of the time?
The fact that the pair are each in charge of one half of the country indicates that there is a political side to their story: for the country to be whole, both are needed. Two opposing political parties or religious interpretations need to work together. That is a fairly obvious reading, especially considering the nature of Egypt as two linked lands – Upper and Lower Egypt – with their own central versions of the local religion, based in Thebes and Heliopolis respectively, but there is also a more direct practical message
in the tale of the strife between Set and Horus.
This part of the surviving mythology can be viewed in the form of an example or guide for Egyptian society in how to conduct formal affairs. When viewed in this light, the myth has some interesting advice for royalty. At the heart of the story, the brother of a dead ruler and the son of that ruler contest the line of succession. They fight over it, they argue over it, they try to each score political points over it, and they appeal to higher authority – the Ennead, the council of the gods – about it, and that higher authority makes it clear that, in the end, the son must inherit. This is very important to the smooth line of succession, especially in a society which, as in Ancient Egypt, claims that the pharaoh is also a god. The myth makes sure that everybody knows that although a brother may be given part of a kingdom, when the true ruler dies his son must take over, no matter what. There were historical instances in which pharaohs appointed relatives as regents, especially while away on campaign, and so some might think that if the pharaoh never returned the regent would keep the throne. However, this particular story tells us that once the reigning monarch is officially dead, his son (assuming there is one) must take over, and that the regent must give up the throne. Daughters and sisters are not even considered, making it a male lineage.
This is why they’re called Coffin Texts – these are spells, not just decorations, painted all around the inside of this coffin. (The Art Archive / Alamy)
Is this what the story was meant to tell the Ancient Egyptians? Nobody knows for sure, but it would be strange indeed if none of them ever thought about it that way.
Then and Now
The story of Set and Horus has had a long legacy, which continues down to the present day. In fact it has several legacies, from various different elements of the myth. The murder of Osiris, followed by his resurrection (a section of the myth which is sometimes viewed as a separate story altogether) can still be seen in later religions.
Both Greeks and Romans assimilated the religions of other territories they absorbed, and Egypt was no exception. When the Greeks ruled Egypt, they equated their gods with the Greek gods, and vice versa. Set, as we saw earlier, was equated with Typhon, while Osiris was equated with Zeus, the king of the gods, Horus with Apollo, and so on.
The Eye of Horus, sometimes called the Eye of Ra, was an Ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and good health.
Some historians and writers have suggested that the story of Jesus’s resurrection might even be a take on the resurrection of Osiris, though the circumstances are very different, as Osiris could only ‘live’ in the underworld. Nevertheless, it is true that Osiris dies in order to show everyone else the way to immortality (in the form of mummification). The Copts who continued the rituals of mummification into the 8th century AD certainly interpreted the preparation by Joseph of Jesus’s body in its shroud as being intended as a form of mummification, according to St Augustine. More directly, the usual depiction of Isis holding the infant Horus led quite smoothly to the first millennium’s imagery of the Madonna and Child, in the artistic style of late Roman paintings.
Isis, of all the deities in the story, is the one whose influence and worship lasted the longest and spread the furthest, probably because of her universal appeal as wife and mother. Everyone in every culture understands those roles, and so the attributes of Isis spread quickly and widely all around the Mediterranean, and, eventually, beyond. Plutarch actually wrote his version of the story as a letter to a Greek high priestess of Isis in his time.
One other way in which this Egyptian tale has possibly influenced popular Christianity is in the basic idea of an enemy of the main god, whether that be the opposite of god (the devil) or of Jesus (the Antichrist). The diametric opposition between Horus and Set could be interpreted as similar to the way most people imagine the Antichrist to be the opposite of Jesus. On a related note, Set still has an official religion, though it has nothing much to do with Ancient Egyptian beliefs. In 1975, a splinter group from the Church of Satan started up the Temple of Set in California, which still exists today.
Isis nursing Horus in a statue from the Louvre. (The Art Archive / Alamy)
A 13th century Byzantine-style Madonna and child. Of all the characters in the myth, Isis may have got the best deal where longevity of her image is concerned. (Robert Estall photo agency / Alamy)
This connection between modern religions brings up a common suggestion; that ‘Satan’ is a variation on the name ‘Set’. This is not the case, however, as the name ‘Satan’ derives from a Hebrew word meaning ‘the opposer’, while the name ‘Set’ is merely one of several possible pronunciations of the Egyptian word ‘swt’. Egyptian hieroglyphics did not record vowels, and so the pronunciation of words and names is open to interpretation. ‘Set’ is the Coptic version of the name, while ‘Seth’ was the Greek. Modern archaeologists think – but are far from certain – that it was most likely originally pronounced ‘sutak’ or ‘sutal’.
On a simpler note, the tale of the two brothers vying for the crown is a timeless story. The sibling rivalry element alone is a fixture of tales from the Biblical Cain and Abel through to modern epics like Game Of Thrones. Likewise, the murdered rightful king being followed by first a usurper and then a vengeful prince is a story found in every culture on the planet. It is the plot of quite a few Shakespeare plays, for example. Take Hamlet: the king’s brother murders him for the throne, and the son of the dead king – who meets his late father ‘resurrected’ as a ghost in a sheet – comes back to reclaim the throne. Sound familiar?
Here is another one: the golden-haired son of a figure who was chopped to pieces before being resurrected in a special set of wrappings in the darkness, and goes on a quest with magical aid from a wiser man, which eventually leads to him confronting the once apparently good schemer who was ultimately responsible for destroying the father in order to seize a throne. Or, as most people call it, the Star Wars franchise. True, it mixes up the different symbolic figures and elements, but they are all there.
Essentially, Horus’s search for justice over Set is the archetypal hero’s journey that the mythologist Joseph Campbell promoted. It certainly includes most of the tropes he lists as being elements of that journey: a villainous father figure, reconciliation with the real father, journeys to the underworld, failure of the first battle, a series of challenges, magical aid, a dead mentor, and so on.
Many of the Egyptian gods, including Apep, Osiris and Set, appeared as villains in the Stargate TV series. (Bureau L.A. Collection/Sygma/Corbis)
Many gods and elements of these myths have continued to be fascinating to modern writers and filmmakers. For example, Horus appears, along with Thoth, Anubis and Bast, in Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods, but Set is only referenced in passing. Surprisingly, considering how rooted in Egyptian mythology the franchise is, neither Horus nor Set have played that big a part in Stargate. Ra, of course, appeared in the original movie as an alien who had possessed a shepherd boy from Ancient Egypt, but the spin-off TV series, Stargate SG1 was replete with gods and goddesses from Egyptian mythology and beyond, who were in fact alien parasites in human host bodies. Set appears only in one episode, ‘Seth’ in season three, in which it is revealed that he stayed on earth for thousands of years, and ended up the leader of a small cult of about a dozen people. This is pretty odd, given the need to be worshipped of both the mythological gods and Stargate’s alien Goa’uld – you would think after thousands of years of being the only actual (faux) deity living on earth he would have a bigger influence, and lead a major world religion, whether a real one or one created for the show.
Horus did not appear in the series at all, though the character of Heru’ur is named for the Greek name for Horus the Elder. Apep, under his Greek name Apophis, was the recurring villain for the first couple of seasons of the show. Osiris did briefly appear as the only male Goa’uld with a female host, cleverly evoking the idea from the myth of his genitalia having never been recovered. As a judge of th
e dead and figure of resurrection, Osiris was also frequently referenced in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, usually in connection with reviving the dead.
In the world of Robert E. Howard’s character Conan the Barbarian, there is a character called Set, who is an evil snake-god, clearly taking his cue from the later Greek tellings of the myths, in which all of Apep’s attributes are given to Set. This serpentine version of Set is also a villain in the video game Sphinx And The Cursed Mummy, and he also took on Lara Croft in Tomb Raider - The Last Revelation.
Set’s finest hour – albeit as a character of pure evil – in modern media comes in the 1975 Doctor Who story Pyramids Of Mars, in which, going by the more accurate pronunciation of Sutekh, he is revealed to be an alien from a planet called Phaester Osiris who would end all life in the cosmos, but who had been imprisoned by Horus. In this version, Horus was his brother, suggesting that this Horus was Horus the Elder. Horus does not appear, though his voice – performed by the same actor as plays Sutekh – is heard.
THE MUMMY RETURNS
It was not just the Osiris-worshipping Ancient Egyptians who were fond of mummification in Egypt. As Egypt was successively ruled by Persians, Greeks, and Romans, the temptation to be preserved for eternity continued to spread. In fact, there were more people looking to be mummified in these later periods than ever before.
Originally, in the earlier dynasties, the mummification process was reserved for the pharaoh, who would become Osiris. As the united Egypt grew and prospered, so mummification became the ultimate fate for royal families, nobles, high priests, and eventually anyone who wanted and could afford it. This led to a problem: there was not enough natron to go round, which meant that other, cheaper materials began to be used as well, such as bitumen. In fact the word ‘mummy’ comes from mumia, the Arabic word for a thing of bitumen. Worse still, there were not enough trained and experienced embalmers to go round, which meant a lot of mummies started to be made by what a modern person might call ‘cowboy’ embalmers. They used the wrong materials, which meant the deceased would rot rather than being preserved as intended, and indeed were often more damaged in the process. Even the spells and amulets to protect and guide the deceased in the Duat frequently went terribly wrong, as by the Graeco-Roman era hieratic had replaced hieroglyphics as Egypt’s language, and many of these cowboy embalmers could not read or write the hieroglyphs, so they made mistakes, such as sticking in totally random spells and getting the name – and even gender – of the deceased wrong. Osiris and Anubis must have been very confused when some of these turned up.
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