Season 2 Episode 1: Seth Apart

The deity Seth is intimately associated with Ancient Egypt’s sense of duality with how he opposes Osiris and Horus. But as time moves forward, when other cultures begin to take Ancient Egypt’s religion and use it as their own or as inspiration, does Seth retain these aspects?

Also featuring:

Transcript:

OSIRIS: Seth, why?

SETH: Oh, you know exactly why brother

ISIS: Oh, Osiris, I suppose it falls to me to revive you.

RA: Seth, you are prepared for tonight?

SETH: As always, my King.

APEP: [Hisses]

RA: Then I trust you to protect me with all your strength.

SAMANTHA LIN: Now, what was that all about?

CALEB FAVER: Yeah, what was that? Wasn’t Osiris the pharaoh or something? And Seth just killed him!

LIN: Exactly! And scattered his body parts all over too.

FAVER: And at the same time. He’s what, protecting the head honcho of the gods, Ra?

LIN: Interesting, isn’t it?

LIN: Welcome to “Now as Then” Season Two Episode One. I’m Samantha Lin.

FAVER: And I’m Caleb Faver, and today, with the help of a certain expert,

JEFF NEWMAN: Hi, my name is Jeff Newman. I am currently a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. I study Egyptian archaeology.

LIN: We’re discussing the god of chaos and the desert, Seth.

LIN: So what do you know about Seth?

FAVER: Well, you know how Loki stabbed his brother in the back?

LIN: Ah, yes.

FAVER: He’s like that. But other than that, not much.

LIN: So, Seth is the god of the desert, storms, foreigners and chaos. And well, like you said, he stabbed his brother. Were you paying attention to the beginning?

FAVER: Oh, yeah. Osiris is his brother. Did he have other siblings?

LIN: He did indeed. You might have heard of them! Isis and Nephthys.

FAVER: Wait, isn’t Isis Osiris’ wife?

LIN: Yup. Seth married his sister as well.

FAVER: Really?

LIN: Yeah. And he’s Anubis’ dad.

FAVER: That seems…

LIN: On the topic of Anubis! You know how he has a jackal head?

FAVER: Yeah, and Horus has a falcon head.

LIN: You know what animal Seth has on his head?

FAVER: From the images I’ve seen it’s a mix between a dog and an aardvark?

LIN: Yeah, that’s probably as close as you’re gonna get. The animal he is from the shoulders up is called the Set animal. Kinda Sets him apart from the other gods that his animal is, well, his and doesn’t exist, right?

FAVER: Haha, but yeah, I can see how that makes him different from the others just by nature.

LIN: Right. And when the Set animal hieroglyph is written, most of its words like “suffering” and “violent storms” have an association with chaos, which happens to be what Seth is a god of. ¹

FAVER: Just straight up chaos?

LIN: Just straight up chaos! which might I add is very important to ancient Egyptian culture. You see, think about the layout of their land.

FAVER: I remember learning about this actually. Among the river valley civilizations, Egypt started it up around the Nile. Their lives were led by the Nile, since when it flooded, it deposited silt that let them grow their crops. Yeah? And if you’re interested to learn more, check out our episode on the Nile.

LIN: Perfect. Now, what’s important is that you remember the other important geographical feature of Egypt. It’s smack in the middle of…

FAVER: The desert.

LIN: The desert! The important part of this is just how diametrically opposed these two things are in every way.

FAVER: The desert is full of course, rough, irritating sand that gets everywhere.

LIN: While the river valley is filled with crops.

FAVER: The desert’s also harsh and hot and hard to travel through. It’s chaotic and dangerous to be in.

LIN: Meanwhile, Egypt around the Nile is considered home where it’s safe and there’s food and water.

FAVER: The sands are bright red,

LIN: While, the silt is a glistening black.

FAVER: So earlier when you said Seth was the god of the desert, you were saying he’s basically the god of all these bad concepts.

LIN: Exactly. And guess who the god is of all these good concepts? I’ll give you a hint: He’s dead now.

FAVER: Oh.

LIN: Yes! Oh-siris. His domain is all those good things we mentioned. In addition to being associated with kingship. ² It doesn’t end there either. It’s probably clear by now that the ancient Egyptians had a strong sense of duality. Black and red, Osiris and Seth, and Ma’at and Isfet.

FAVER: What was those last two?

LIN: Well, Ma’at is basically order, involved with things such as justice in moderation. The goddess Ma’at is the daughter of Ra, god of the sun and one of the gods responsible for creating the world. Very important.

FAVER: So isfet is disorder.

LIN: And it’s the pharaohs’ job to make sure that Ma’at overcomes Isfet. So, you know, society can function.

FAVER: And if Osiris and Horus are related to the pharaohs,

LIN: You guessed it. Also associated with disorder is our good friend Seth. It doesn’t end there either!

LIN: Egypt may have good natural defenses, what with all the sand and water, but it still ended up falling to foreign rule. And guess who’s also the god of foreigners?

FAVER: Seth. Imagine if after invading they said, “Hey, Seth seems pretty neat!” and took him as their representative.

LIN: There’s no need for that! That totally happened. ³

FAVER: Wow! So Seth was kind of the worst, just totally evil.

LIN: Incorrect!

FAVER: Oh, okay.

LIN: Were you paying attention in the beginning?

FAVER: Hmm. In that segment, Seth was protecting the king from a snake. Oh, wait, this is the part I know well actually!

LIN: Go wild.

FAVER: The creator of the gods and the world, Ra, would descend into to the underworld every night as the representation of the sun setting. Waiting for him every night was Apep or Apophis, a giant serpent and yet another embodiment of chaos, who would try to sink Ra’s boat and keep the sun from rising the next day.

FAVER: So during this time, it was the job of certain gods to keep the king safe. Namely Bastet, the Eye of Ra, and Seth. Seth has been depicted as spearing Apep in the Book of the Dead ⁴, a clear show just how he goes about doing his job.

LIN: Awesome! Thank you, Caleb! You see, after all this, there’s something else Seth is associated with: power. That staff you see lots of representations of him holding is called a Was-scepter, which represents power. And look at this. ⁵ Look familiar?

FAVER: Huh. You sent me a picture of one of the heads of a scepter. It looks like his head. And is that Seth carved into the wood?⁶ For the symbol of power to have his animal shape and have his face engraved in it sure explains how he’s able to fend off the evil serpent so well.

NEWMAN: With a deity like Seth, he originally sort of has a, instead of a danger aspect to his sort of cosmic flavor, that originally seems to be more dealing with power and strength. So he seems early on to be more of a god that’s associated with chaos, but not necessarily the bad form of chaos, but the chaos that exists in life naturally. And you can even see it in some of the earliest Egyptian religious texts that we have, that while Seth is very much a dangerous deity, he’s also a protective deity. And this kind of goes to a concept that you see throughout Egyptian religion, in that if you can get like a demon or some sort of very terrible, dangerous force, figure out a way to have that horrible thing, work in your favor, you can sort of harness it. Sometimes we refer to it as something being apotropaic.

So it’s finding one of these like dangerous forces and sort of harnessing it to use to help protect whatever your own initiative is. That sort of seems the way that the Egyptians thought of Seth, at least early on in Egyptian history. But then, of course, even in the Pyramid Texts, the famous Contendings of Horus and Seth, we also have references to that early on as well, too. And yes, it does seem that the Egyptians felt that Seth was oftentimes in opposition to the two gods that were most associated with kingship, Osiris and his son, Horus. But this also goes to another Egyptian concept, which is that there’s always a balance in life. But what the Egyptians sort of nuanced this idea, this balance idea is that you can never have one fully eliminate the other; it’s not good to have one be completely eliminated. What’s good is that there’s a balance of both. And that’s sort of how I sort of interpret Seth, at least early on in Egyptian history. He’s kind of that necessary evil.

FAVER: So after all, this Seth is the worst, but also the most important to the Pantheon.

LIN: In a way, yes, he defends the most important God alongside Bastet. So he isn’t just a single facet.

FAVER: Are you even allowed to exist in such two different spheres? Doesn’t Ra merge with Osiris when he enters the underworld?

LIN: Yes. And yes. You also have to remember that after he died, Osiris became the god of the underworld, another very important part of ancient Egyptian culture. Between killing Osiris and protecting Ra, Seth is very involved in the most important concepts of rebirth. You’re most well versed in Norse mythology, right?

FAVER: So it’s like that where things can be interpreted in different ways. In Norse’s case, it’s because there’s only really two books to draw material from.

LIN: Ancient Egyptian religion is like the opposite of that. Before being really consolidated, different cities had their own cults favorites. It’s not as clear cut as Greek mythology where Agamemnon bad or Achilles mad.

NEWMAN: The Egyptians were not necessarily looking for one specific answer to any of their fundamental existential questions, and in a way that I mean, you can see in many religions, Greek religion included, and that’s that there’s oftentimes inconsistencies when you look at the specifics of what they deal with. But I would say that overall Egyptian religion is very fluid. There is never simply, at least to the outside observer, there often doesn’t seem to be one correct answer to any of the big questions in life. Instead, the Egyptians prefer to layer those meanings onto different entities, onto different stories, onto different symbology. Whereas in Greek mythology, there seems to be much more of a standardized hierarchy.

LIN: Homer and his buddies were…

FAVER: Oh, yeah, they wrote everything down.

LIN: Yeah, exactly. Oh, on the topic of Homer! Seth was actually adapted into Greek mythology.

FAVER: Really? I don’t remember any Set animal headed Greek gods.

LIN: Yeah, he wasn’t lucky enough to get a humanoid body this time. You know how Seth came to be associated with invaders?

FAVER: Did they not really like him after that?

LIN: Yeah, to the point where he kinda sorta merged with the snake he used to kill every night.

NEWMAN: And this is also, for instance, when we get the most expressed form of the Contendings of Horus and Seth – that actual story comes down to us in the form of a papyrus from the 20th Dynasty, I think, so actually rather late in the New Kingdom. And that’s where we get the fully expressed form where Seth actually murders Osiris, and almost does the same thing to Horus and sort of usurps the throne. So coincidentally, when you get that papyrus, you also get detections of the attitude that Seth isn’t necessarily the greatest deity. And that’s when we sort of see that he’s sort of turning into this more evil figure. So there is a diachronic shift in the attitude of Seth and Egyptian religion for sure.

LIN: So to the Greeks, Seth became Typhon. In Hesiod’s theogony, Typhon is the father to a bunch of Echidna’s monsters, including Cerberus and the Hydra. And is shaped like

FAVER: A giant snake? ⁷

LIN: You guessed it.

FAVER: So they just made him a monster and ignored the good he did for the gods.

LIN: Well, he was also the dad of typhoons.

FAVER: So he kept the storms and his chaos: his kids are the antagonists to a bunch of heroes.

LIN: Yeah, it’s not really a great look for Seth, you know. And you know how Greek mythology was very clear cut. When they adapted Egyptian gods, a lot got shaved off. They really just took a lot of the gods and put their attributes on to their own Greek Pantheon. ⁸

FAVER: Did Apollo get Horus?

LIN: You bet.

LIN: Anyway, guess how people are worshipping Seth in the modern day.

FAVER: People are worshipping Seth in the modern day?

LIN: Yep. But not in the way you’d think. Kemetism does exist, which is people following the ancient Egyptian religion in the modern day, but that is not what we’re here for.

FAVER: Oh.

LIN: Seth has his own religion that’s a spin off of Satanism.

FAVER: Excuse me?

LIN: Setianism started in Santa Barbara, California in 1975, separated from the Church of Satan and believe that Seth, or Set, is the one true God. And they are indeed exempt from taxes. ⁹

FAVER: But, but isn’t Seth from a polytheistic religion, where when somebody in power tried to make it monotheistic, they experienced post mortem backlash?¹⁰

LIN: Akhenaten did that with the creator god too. Not the trickster, controversial, Seth.

FAVER: Well, what do they focus on in Seth?

LIN: They have a religious book that Seth spoke through the founder Michael Aquino in.

FAVER: Is… is that? Does this track with-

LIN: And it focuses on Seth as a teacher who teaches them to gain immortality of consciousness.

LIN: None that really sounds like the ancient Egyptian concept of Seth. So they essentially saw this demonized figure, decided he was like the Satan they were familiar with, and molded the concept of him to fit their religion they were starting.

FAVER: Essentially, that feels disrespectful of the ancient Egyptians.

LIN: I agree. Well, to lighten the mood a little maybe let’s transition to something we can both enjoy talking about a little more.

LIN: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the manga by Hirohiko Araki.

FAVER: Heck yes.

LIN: You’re the one who introduced me to this massive franchise that’s led to Araki getting his art displayed in the Louvre. This man has collaborated with Gucci!

LIN: And his currently eight part manga we’re discussing started in 1987 and continues to have its story told.

LIN: But what we want to focus on is Part Three: Stardust Crusaders.

FAVER: That’s the arc where the titular Jojo and his friends travel through Egypt to defeat DIO. And what do you know? A lot of the enemies they fight have powers based on Egyptian gods, including our good friend Seth.

LIN: Sethan, the stand introduced in chapter 205, or Episode 31 of Stardust Crusaders, materializes as a black or purple shadow respectively, and has the power to regress the age of anyone that passes over.¹¹

FAVER: Wait. Something about that doesn’t sound right.

LIN: Oh, so you have been paying attention?

FAVER: Of course I have. Seth is associated with red and is normally in direct opposition with black. What gives?

LIN: Even if Jojo is known for its off the wall color palettes and changing them for the scene? Wouldn’t it make sense to make this stand red as a simple homage?

FAVER: After all this, I also don’t really see how his stand relates to this role in the myth either.

LIN: The only thing I could think of is his connection to Horus the Younger through fighting with Horus and their Contendings. Check out the season one episode about Horus if you’re interested about that.

FAVER: That’s, that’s a bit of a stretch.

LIN: Yeah, but it’s all i’ve got.

FAVER: Then isn’t this in a roundabout

LIN: HA

FAVER: way, a bit of like what the Sethian guy did to Seth? Strip him of all his meaning and relevance in order to make him fit the narrative.

LIN: I think you could argue that, especially because some of the other gods referenced in Jojo’s, such as Horus or Osiris, both didn’t have their names changed, and their references to the original gods were much more clear.

FAVER: Yeah, Horus was a straight up falcon, and Osiris dealt with people’s souls, a nod to his role in the underworld.

LIN: That being said, When localized Sethan was changed to Set, and I think Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has the excuse of being both fiction and having quote unquote, Bizarre in the name. It’s not meant to be taken seriously.

FAVER: I see where you’re coming from.

LIN: But this is still a legitimate culture being referenced here and not just fun Western album names like the other powers are named after. So Food for Thought. Is this depiction, both of Egyptian gods as the enemies and Sethan’s design and power made better because it’s fun?

FAVER: To be fair, most of the Egyptian gods stands belong to Egyptian locals.

LIN: That is a good point. Something to keep in mind.

LIN: We made it all the way to the end. So I have a question for you, Caleb, are you familiar with Orientalism?

FAVER: Vaguely? Aren’t rugs oriental?

LIN: I think they have that descriptor sometimes. But that’s not what this use of the word is. You know how the way people in the West view other nations is a bit skewed sometimes, sometimes to make them look more threatening?

FAVER: Well, yes, unfortunately, like how the intro song to Aladdin talks about cutting off your ear.

LIN: Yeah, Orientalism is the result of that. It’s the mindset that the Orient basically the middle to Far East is different and something of a spectacle, to be ogled and profited off of or feared, but not understood. Enough of this, and eventually the result is that the West views cultures of the Orient as inferior and something to be improved.

FAVER: Disgusting.

LIN: I know right? Egyptomania really led to a warped view of Egypt as a whole. And I’d argue that these uses and misuses of Seth are just another example of that. He was stripped of his original identity and just either an evil monster or something completely different depending on who was using his image.

LIN: It’s only fair to note that the ancient Egyptians had a hand in the flip to a pure evil Seth. However, the others really took what happened and ran with it.

FAVER: So you’re saying that Orientalism is still relevant and you’re using Seth as your example.

LIN: That’s indeed what I’m doing. Unless people cared to look, they never have known about the facets of Seth. Similarly, unless people care to find proper sources, the ancient Egyptian civilization is largely something mystic and far away and Amazing, while modern Egypt is just kind of geographically superimposed over it,

FAVER: Dang, I’ve learned a lot from this and I definitely don’t want to fall into that hole. The ancient Egyptians were people with a religion and to respect that is to takes steps to respecting their culture as a whole,

LIN: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

LIN: Thank you so much for joining me on this opener episode of Season Two of “Now as Then.” A huge thank you to Robyn Price for leading the seminar that produced this podcast, Deidre Whitmore for all to help with podcasting, Simon Lee, Katherine Kapsidelis, and Jet Jacobs for their insight into research, and Martin Brennan for help on copyright.

FAVER: If you want to hear more about Ancient Egypt and how it’s relevant in our modern time, check out the other episodes of “Now as Then.” Each one is about a wholly different topic, so really?

LIN: You should listen to all of them.

FAVER: You should listen to all of them!

LIN: One last time. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Seth spearing Apep

Was-Scepter of Seth’s face

Works Cited:

Araki, Hirohiko. “‘God Sethan’ Alessi, Part 1,” Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders. Weekly Shonen Jump. 1991.

Banks, J. and Nagy, Gregory. Hesiod, Theogony. https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5289 . Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard. 12 Dec. 2019. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.

Betrò, Maria C. Hieroglyphics: the Writings of Ancient Egypt. 1st. ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. The Gods of the Egyptians: Studies in Egyptian Mythology. Routledge, 2010.

Bunson, Margaret. Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Facts On File, 2012.

Ćwiek, Andrzej. “RED AND BLACK WORLD.” Studies in Ancient Art & Civilization 18 (2014). https://www.academia.edu/35318747/Studies_in_Ancient_Art_and_Civilization_vol._18.

Dorman, Peter F., and John R. Baines. “Sources and Limitations of Ancient and Modern Knowledge.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 10 Oct. 2017,
www.britannica.com/topic/ancient-Egyptian-religion/Sources-and-limitations-of-ancient-aNd-modern-knowledge.

Fritze, R. H. Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession, and Fantasy. 2016.

Hirst, John. “Horemheb – KV 57.” Tombs of Ancient Egypt, Osirisnet, 5 May 2011, www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/horemheb/e_horemheb_pharaon_01.htm.

Introvigne, Massimo. Satanism: a Social History. Brill, 2016.

Te Velde, H. Seth, God of Confusion: A Study of His Role In Egyptian Mythology And Religion. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967.

Trigger, Bruce Graham; Kemp, Barry; O’Connor, David Bourke; Lloyd, Alan Brian. Ancient Egypt, A Social History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001.

UCL Petrie Collection Online Catalogue. “New Kingdom UC60024,” The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology http://petriecat.museums.ucl.ac.uk/detail.aspx#7474, 2019, Accessed 1 May 2020

21st Dynasty Book of the Dead, Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Sound Credits:

“I Recall” by Blue Dot Sessions

“Storybook” by Scott Holmes

“Interception” by Kai Engel

“SnakeAttackVerbPuls” by Jamius
https://freesound.org/people/Jamius/sounds/41531/

“Nasty Knife Stab 2” by Aris621 https://freesound.org/people/Aris621/sounds/478145/

“Beheading SFX” by Ajexk https://freesound.org/people/Ajexk/sounds/271984/

Transcript:

Works Cited:

Sound Credits:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply