Horus

Horus was the younger sun God that virtually took over the role from the older God, Ra. Many qualities and roles of these two Deities became blurred and overlapped over the hundreds of years of ancient Egyptian culture. Like Ra, Horus was a great sun God who ruled over the other Gods. He was very powerful and represented divine leadership, and was incarnated in the Pharaohs.

He was son to Isis and Osiris, and the three of them made up the holy Trinity of the pantheon. Because he exists in some myths as a child, and some as a man, Horus is sometimes named "Horus the Younger" and "Horus the Elder" to differentiate between these two aspects. Like Ra, Horus' animal representation is the falcon. Horus is sometimes called the son of Ra, but his lineage places the two much farther apart. Ra would be Horus' great-great-grandfather.

The eye of Horus symbol comes from one of the many battles between Horus and his uncle Set. Set tore out one of Horus' eyes. Set was forced to return the eye, and it has represented protection from evil ever since. He battled with Set to avenge the earlier murder of his father, Osiris. These battles are likely tied to the battles that took place between Upper and Lower Egypt.

There were temples to Horus in nearly every city of Egypt, but one of the main shrines was Edfu. The temple to Horus is one of the best preserved in Egypt and second only to Karnak in size.