I am so jealous you got down there to get those photos! Very interesting as I thought they would be. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it is unfinished and that there are parts of it which are painted as there is part of the last room in the temple itself which is also just painted. The image of the king looks very much like the excellent reliefs from the Seti period of the temple, but it looks to me like the cartouches have been redone and now have one of the names Merneptah while others appear blank now. So I guess Seti’s grandson paid at least a little attention to the site?
Most of the decoration is credited to Merenptah. I’ve put some notes on the subject in the “In Brief” section for anyone who wants to know more about the site (http://bit.ly/rtpDnP), but most of the slightly stranger images appear to be from New Kingdom funerary texts.
By the way, James, I note that in the 9th photo (3rd from the end) there is an even stranger double-headed figure than the one in your Seti I temple photos.
It is indeed an odd one, but I’ve actually seen it before in another place! It is also in the tomb of Thutmose III, though in a stick figure form. Does it represent some sort of ultimate unity as a combination of Horus and Set?
I was rather hoping that someone else would answer this question as I have been able to find out very little. The Horus-Seth figure is shown in funerary texts, and is a symbiosis of Horus and Seth, but I have been unable to find out much more than that, which is infuriating as I have a real interest in the funerary texts.
One of the reasons for the symbiosis appears to be that Seth represented the south and Horus the north, together representing a united Egypt – very much like the Unification of the Two Lands symbol (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/95b9b2db).
Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead refers to Horus as having two heads “one bearing right and one bearing wrong; he gives wrong to whoever does it, and right to whoever comes with it” (R.O. Faulkner’s translation). Chapter 17 is notoriously complicated and the meanings are not always explicit. It was annotated by a scribe, whose purpose seems to have been to clarify some of the more obscure passages – often making life even more complicated! This was one of those annotations.
The only useful source for any more details that I have to hand seems to be Budge’s “Gods of the Egyptians”. Budge describes it in the 10th hour of the “Tuat” (afterlife) in the “Book of Pylons,” better known as the Book of Gates (volume 1): “The double god Horus-Set, with two heads and two pairs of arms and hands on one body, standing upon a platform which rests on two bows ; from each end of the platform spring three uraei. All these beings are supposed to be employed in helping Ra to continue his course through the Tenth Division, and to make his way to the region of the sunrise”. In his discussion of the Amduat, the figure appears in the 2nd Hour worshipping and guiding the deity Osiris in his lunar form. In volume 2 he also mentions Horus-Set: “Heru-ur, as we have already seen, was the god of the sky by day, and Set was the god of the sky by night ; this fact is proved by the figures of the double god which are found in mythological scenes whereon the head of Heru-ur and the head of Set are seen upon one body.” Budge provides a coloured illustration of the Horus-Set figure on page 242.
It makes sense that it is related to a symbol of united Egypt. I think I’ve got a good photo from the Egyptian Museum of a relief with Horus and Set in the same pose which is from the reign of Thutmose I.
By
I am so jealous you got down there to get those photos! Very interesting as I thought they would be. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it is unfinished and that there are parts of it which are painted as there is part of the last room in the temple itself which is also just painted. The image of the king looks very much like the excellent reliefs from the Seti period of the temple, but it looks to me like the cartouches have been redone and now have one of the names Merneptah while others appear blank now. So I guess Seti’s grandson paid at least a little attention to the site?
Most of the decoration is credited to Merenptah. I’ve put some notes on the subject in the “In Brief” section for anyone who wants to know more about the site (http://bit.ly/rtpDnP), but most of the slightly stranger images appear to be from New Kingdom funerary texts.
By the way, James, I note that in the 9th photo (3rd from the end) there is an even stranger double-headed figure than the one in your Seti I temple photos.
It is indeed an odd one, but I’ve actually seen it before in another place! It is also in the tomb of Thutmose III, though in a stick figure form. Does it represent some sort of ultimate unity as a combination of Horus and Set?
I was rather hoping that someone else would answer this question as I have been able to find out very little. The Horus-Seth figure is shown in funerary texts, and is a symbiosis of Horus and Seth, but I have been unable to find out much more than that, which is infuriating as I have a real interest in the funerary texts.
One of the reasons for the symbiosis appears to be that Seth represented the south and Horus the north, together representing a united Egypt – very much like the Unification of the Two Lands symbol (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/95b9b2db).
Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead refers to Horus as having two heads “one bearing right and one bearing wrong; he gives wrong to whoever does it, and right to whoever comes with it” (R.O. Faulkner’s translation). Chapter 17 is notoriously complicated and the meanings are not always explicit. It was annotated by a scribe, whose purpose seems to have been to clarify some of the more obscure passages – often making life even more complicated! This was one of those annotations.
The only useful source for any more details that I have to hand seems to be Budge’s “Gods of the Egyptians”. Budge describes it in the 10th hour of the “Tuat” (afterlife) in the “Book of Pylons,” better known as the Book of Gates (volume 1): “The double god Horus-Set, with two heads and two pairs of arms and hands on one body, standing upon a platform which rests on two bows ; from each end of the platform spring three uraei. All these beings are supposed to be employed in helping Ra to continue his course through the Tenth Division, and to make his way to the region of the sunrise”. In his discussion of the Amduat, the figure appears in the 2nd Hour worshipping and guiding the deity Osiris in his lunar form. In volume 2 he also mentions Horus-Set: “Heru-ur, as we have already seen, was the god of the sky by day, and Set was the god of the sky by night ; this fact is proved by the figures of the double god which are found in mythological scenes whereon the head of Heru-ur and the head of Set are seen upon one body.” Budge provides a coloured illustration of the Horus-Set figure on page 242.
It makes sense that it is related to a symbol of united Egypt. I think I’ve got a good photo from the Egyptian Museum of a relief with Horus and Set in the same pose which is from the reign of Thutmose I.