Set was the Egyptian god of chaos, the desert, storms, violence and disorder — the murderer of his brother Osiris and the great adversary of Horus, yet also a powerful defender of the sun-god Ra against the serpent of chaos. A complex and ambivalent god, he embodied both the necessary force of strength and the dangerous power of disorder, at once villain and protector.
The God of Chaos and the Desert
Set (also Seth, Sutekh) was a son of the earth-god Geb and sky-goddess Nut, brother to Osiris, Isis and Nephthys (who was also his wife). He was the god of the desert (the harsh red land beyond the fertile Nile valley), of storms, violence, foreigners, and disorder — the embodiment of the chaotic, dangerous and untamed forces that stood opposed to the ordered world of Ma'at. He was depicted as a man with the head of an enigmatic, unidentified animal — the “Set animal,” with a curved snout, tall square-tipped ears and a forked tail — a beast unlike any other, fittingly strange for the god of disorder.
The Murder of Osiris
Set's most infamous deed was the murder of his brother Osiris. Envious of the good king, Set tricked Osiris into a chest, sealed him in, and drowned him in the Nile; and when Isis recovered the body, Set hacked Osiris into fourteen pieces and scattered them across Egypt. This act made Set the great villain of the central Egyptian myth, the murderer and usurper, the embodiment of chaos and wrong who slew the rightful king. He then contended for years with Osiris's avenging son Horus for the throne of Egypt — the long and violent Contendings of Horus and Set — in which Set fought fiercely but was ultimately defeated and the throne awarded to Horus.
The Defender of Ra
Yet Set was not purely evil, and this is what makes him one of the most complex of Egyptian gods. For all his chaos and violence, those very qualities made him a mighty defender. Each night, when the sun-god Ra sailed his barque through the underworld and was attacked by the chaos-serpent Apophis, it was Set who stood at the prow of the solar barque and speared the great serpent, defending the sun and the cosmic order against destruction. Set's strength and ferocity, so dangerous in the Osiris myth, were here turned to the protection of creation itself. He was thus both the agent of chaos and its conqueror, a god whose violent power could destroy or defend.
The Ambivalent God
Set's reputation shifted across Egypt's long history — in some eras he was an honoured god, even a royal patron (some pharaohs were named for him), embodying necessary strength and the protective power of the king; in others, especially later periods, he was demonised as the embodiment of evil, his images defaced. Set endures as one of the most fascinating and ambivalent gods of ancient Egypt — the murderer of Osiris and foe of Horus, yet the defender of Ra; the god of the desert, storm and chaos, at once destroyer and protector. He embodies the Egyptian understanding that chaos and disorder are real and dangerous forces — but also that strength, violence and the wild power of the desert have their necessary place in the order of the world.
He murdered his brother and warred against his nephew for the throne — yet each night he stands at the prow of the sun's barque and spears the serpent of chaos, the destroyer who is also the defender.