THE ROLE OF HORUS IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION

THE ROLE OF HORUS IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION

In the Egyptian, Horus pierces the Apap-Dragon in the eye and pins his head to the earth with a lance. The mythical mode of representation went on developing in Egypt, keeping touch with the advancing arts. The weapon of the Basque Hero was earlier than the lance or spear of Horus; it is a stake of wood made red-hot. With this he pierces the huge monster in the eye and burns him blind. The Greek version of this is too well known to call for repetition here, and the Basque lies nearer to the original Egyptian. It is more important to identify the eye and the blazing snake.

Horus, the young solar God, is slayer of the Apap by piercing him in the eye. The Apap is the Giant, the Dragon, the serpent of darkness, and the eye of Apap was thought of as the eye of a serpent that was huge enough to coil round the mountain of the world, or about the Tree of life and light which had its rootage in the nether earth. This, on the horizon, was the Tree of dawn. The stake is a reduced form of the tree that was figured in the green of dawn. The typical tree was a weapon of the ancient Horus who is described as fighting Sut with a branch of palm, which also is a reduced form of the tree. The tree of dawn upon the horizon was the weapon of the solar god with which he pierced the dragon of darkness and freed the mountain of earth and the Princess in Amenta from its throttling, crushing, reptilinear coils.

This tree, conventionalised in the stake made red-hot in the furnace, formed the primitive weapon with which Horus or Ulysses or the Tartaro put out the Monster’s eye, and pierced the serpent’s head to let forth the waters of light once more and to free the lady from her prison in the lower world. When the Apap-Monster in the cave of darkness was personified in something like the human shape, the Giant as reptile in the earliest representation passed into the Giant as a Monster in the form of a magnified man called the Cyclops and named Polyphemus. In one of the African Folk-tales the little Hero Kalulu slays the monster by thrusting a huge red-hot boulder down the devourer’s throat. This is a type of the red-hot solar orb which the Power of darkness tried to swallow, and thus put out the light.