Goddess Isis - Blog Posts

Do they know it's legal now

The

Based on that emo student loan debt meme that I can't find now

Thought a little about my Horus the Elder because when I was getting into Egyptian mythology like ≈95% of sources I read didn't even include him so I didn't really think about him and the concept of the fact that Horus has probably more separate pieces of himself in Egyptian religion than Osiris does.

So I came to conclusion that he either just wasn't there either he died somewhere during his childhood. He's probably in duat right now but no one really knows.

The four don't really remember him, his face, voice, all that. He is at some family frescoes though so they sometimes look at them and are like oooohhh right Horus... Right. ....

Isis named Horus after him though.

Go Egyptian gods go!

Old man Ra being an old man.

I really like how I drew Horus and Seth in here, a good scale of how far I come from when I was in elementary school. I also try new styles that I have seen on both Deviantart and Tumblr, like the flowy, ethereal/regal, lively look (I'll try to find those artists again if they're still up for refrence)

I freaking LOVE Egyptian Mythology and world history so much, thanks to my favorite show/media, Time Warp Trio, Magic Tree House, Tutenstein (although i only got to watch so few before I ever saw it again ;_; )

Comment if you ever saw these shows/books as well as share your obscure media!

¿por que te vas? / por que te vas...

Ik he didn't do all that but I wanted to draw him like that. Okay

Making shrinky dinks:)

Isis: oh no! I can't find my husband phallus in his remains! How will I ever conceive a heir, a hero from my beloved? Who could commit such monstrosity?!

Set, with a suspiciously phallus shaped throat:

The lovers🌾🌾🌾🌾

Inspiration

I want to do an Egyptian illustration but I feel the need to have some designs first, here are some sketches from the past couple weeks:) it’s kind of a hot mess right know lol, I’m really trying to emphasize shapes and create genuine outfits/accessories.

''I find it ironic that your opponent's sins are always discussed, but… what about yours?''

if you wanna more context for this sketch, go to @/ava-is-up-to-something 's post about Isis being beheaded for her own son.

After pondering this long and hard I've come up with three possible explanations for what happened to the old head:

Horus never gave it back. It's in a chest of drawers in his house somewhere. He remembers it every time he has to do spring cleaning.

Horus did give it back; Isis has two heads now. She's like that princess from the wizard of oz books who wears different heads every day instead of different outfits.

Horus was going to give it back, but he lost it somewhere. It's now in the place where all lost Egyptian things go (the archives of the British Museum).

sometimes horus hears ominious humming coming from deep within the storage room, but he pays no mind to it

maybe he should clean it out. one day.

Hey do you ever think there was an extremely awkward moment where Set realized that at least* two of his wives (Nephthys and Taweret) were helping to raise baby Horus behind his back?

Like, imagine it. Isis has decided her son is finally prepared to face Set. She has presented him to the Ennead. The court case to decide which one should hold the kingship has begun.

And as Set is watching Horus, trying to calculate what to do (he's not good with words so. best bet is probably just to punch him in the face really hard when no one is looking. oh no, the annoying child is dead! of completely unidentifiable causes! we can all go home now!), he notices that Taweret is, like, always slipping Horus honey candies whenever Isis isn't looking? And she keeps ruffling his hair affectionately with her hands?

And, also, Nephthys is correcting Horus's posture on how he holds his weapons? Like, he'll be holding a spear or a khopesh (wrong! cause he's stupid!), but then Nephthys will make eye contact with him while miming how to do it properly, and he corrects himself? And when his belt sash comes undone she'll point at her own so he fixes it? And she thinks she's being sly about it but SET CAN SEE HER DOING THIS???

Why is this happening? What does it mean? Because to be honest Set hasn't been speaking with his wives a lot recently. There were really long periods of time where they didn’t see each other, since he was busy stalking through the marshes of the Nile Delta trying to hunt down and kill this kid. And, now that he thinks about it, he doesn't really know exactly where they were when that was happening. And-- Oh. OH GOD.

*I say "at least" because there are a lot of goddesses who you could speculate are Set's consorts based on various evidence, and the amount of goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon who are said to have helped/watched over Horus at some point is basically all of them. So the number of women this happened with is potentially infinite.

Also if you're wondering about Set and Taweret, Plutarch says that they had a relationship at some point, and it kind of makes sense if you consider that Taweret is supposed to be a very fearsome guardian, hence her association with female hippos (who are very violent when they protect their young), and Set also is very fearsome, hence his association with male hippos (who are also violent but minus the protecting their young part).

Full English Translation of the Kahun Papyrus's "Tale of Horus and Set" (the Horus/Set gay sex papyrus)

The "Tale of Horus and Set" is two surviving "pages" of a Middle kingdom papyrus that was found at the site of Kahun/El Lahun with the rest of the "Kahun Papyrus"/"Kahun Papyri" collection. It's pretty small, and one page is almost completely destroyed, but what can still be read of it is a version of the Horus vs. Set lettuce myth. There is some debate about whether it is a piece of a magic spell or of a longer narrative. If was part of a spell than the story was probably not very long, but if it was a narrative text then this would be the only surviving part of a a much larger story (perhaps similar to the Contendings of Horus and Set).

This translation was done by me. I speak Middle Egyptian, although I am not an Egyptologist. As far as I'm aware there is no publicly available full English translation of this story (there was the original Latin one in 1898 and then some partial English ones you can find in various papers), so I've created this for anyone who's curious. While doing this, I tried to find as many other translations as possible to compare notes, and have left notes to explain where other translations disagree with me.

Most of the first page is so destroyed that what’s left is basically just gibberish. The gibberish looks something like this:

(1) … him (2) …he/his [something] (3) …that, with regard to it, is made(?) (4) …this [some type of person?]. I, moreover, will give (5) …to you against the stomach. Look, you (6) …[something] which has been repeated, without that, when I give (7) …stomach. You are upon the water, giving…

Sadly Egyptian is a language where meaning depends heavily on context, so brief snatches of only a couple words like this could have many, many different meanings depending on what the other words around them were.

The fragment proper begins on the last line of the first page.

(8) Then the Majesty of Set said (1) to the Majesty of Horus, “How beautiful your two buttocks are! Make wide (the space between) your two feet!…” (2) Then the Majesty of Horus said: “Wait, so that I may tell this [to my mother.” And he returned] (3) to their house. Then the Majesty of Horus said to his mother, Isis: “[What should I do?] (4) Set [has come], so that he may ‘become acquainted’ with me.” Then she said to him: “Be careful! Don’t approach him about that. [But], after he tells you that (5) again, you must say to him: ‘That would be utterly too difficult for me, because you are too heavy. (6) My strength will not bear your strength,’ you will say to him. "Then, after he has given you strength, (7) you must shove your fingers between your buttocks. Indeed [it] will cause… it to him like… (8) ...Indeed, it will be highly sweet upon his heart… (9) this semen which comes forth from his phallus, without letting Ra see." (10) [Then the Majesty of Set said:] “Come, do not [be afraid] of me (11) … I [will stop] that which I produce."

The papyrus becomes more damaged and disconnected as it goes on. It seems like Isis is advising Horus to "catch" Set's sperm in his hands, so it can't get inside of him, similar to what he did in The Contendings of Horus and Set, but since the end is so disconnected it's hard to tell if there are any significant differences in how that plays out here from Contendings.

The word the story uses for "strength" is pHty, a word that specifically means male sexual strength or strength with a sexual connotation. Ancient texts frequently describe Set as having a lot of pHty (he is often called aA pHty, "great of strength"). pHty sounds similar to pHwy, the word for "buttocks," so “My strength will not bear your strength” is wordplay, it sounds a lot like "my ass will not bear your strength." That line could also be read as "my strength will not be equal to your strength" since rmni can mean both "to support" or "to equal."

In “Homosexual Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature” by RB Parkinson, which has a section about this story, Parkinson believes "strength" in the line "after he has given you strength," may be referring specifically to Set's semen or phallus, (so “giving strength” means Set penetrating Horus.)

At the very end of the fragment it seems like Set shows back up again (there's a divine name determinative there but the divine name itself is missing). What he says is very unclear, but for the sake of completeness I have tried to make an attempt at filling it in. In the original 1898 Latin translation (from "Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob"), Petrie guessed that the first thing Set says might’ve been “don’t be afraid of me,” which fits the context, although I’m not sure what word would be used for "afraid" there. Given that there’s a force/activity determinative visible in the second thing he says, although the rest of the word is missing, I have made an extremely tentative guess that he’s promising to pull out.

The two big places where my translation deviates from other translations are right at the beginning:

After complimenting his ass, the second thing Set says to Horus appears to be wsx rdwy.ky, and what that is supposed to mean in this context is very hard to decipher. Parkinson translated it as “broad are your thighs,” but I don't think it makes sense to use rdwy to refer to thighs, it seems to always be used to mean feet and feet related things, not other parts of the leg. So I think it is more likely that this referring to stance, and what he's saying means something like "widen your stance" or "spread 'em."

In response to what Set has just said, Horus tells him to "sAi" (𓊃𓅭𓄿𓀸𓂻), which my dictionaries tell me means "wait." The 1898 translation has something like “Away with you!, I will tell that to my mother!” here, which is iconic, but that’s because Petrie didn’t recognize this word and had to guess what it meant; because sAi looks like sAw (𓊃𓅭𓄿𓀸𓀜) a word that means “beware!,” but with a 𓂻 legs determinative, he guessed it to mean "go away." (He explained his reasoning in his translation notes, it's pretty cool to read). Parkinson translates it as though the word just was sAw; he has Horus say “watch out, I shall tell this”, so I think he assumed the legs were a mistake. But "wait" also works in this context so I don't see any reason to assume it wasn't intended.

I was able to read this papyrus using Petrie's scans and hieroglyphic transcriptions from the plates volume of Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, linked here. The plate for this papyrus is on page 24. (You may notice that the hieratic scans have different line numbers than the transcriptions; I've used the numbers on the scans.)

To make it easier for people to check my work if they want to, I've also made this alternatively formatted version, showing the translation line by line beside the hieroglyphs. The glyphs have been reformatted slightly to be all horizontal and left to right. I've marked the parts where my transcription differs from Petrie's in red:

Oh my god I didn't think youd answer

Also didn't know if I should hide these in the tags but I really LOVE uour HCS for me and honestly I had similar once but they just migrated in kinda . Different aspects different gods. Like Thoth was a shy nerd stereotype then he kinda was beep-boop business business no emotions no jokes. (but THIS just became a Maat thing. I imagine her to be more unemotional and serious, compared to Thoth. She DOESN'T UNDERSTAND humor. Ra will say "hi hungry I'm dad" and she will run to ask Thoth to add "hungry" as one of his epithets) Like I thought about his relationship with gods that are higher than him (especially Ra) being kinda like Pearl and ____ Diamond if we're talking about him not being able to lie ever and that he was more. Idk faithful than other gods. More serious if we put it that way. Times changed now he's just a sarcastic but serious bastard that loves his job too much and can yell at Ra and other gods if the situation is calling for it.

Okay ramble ramble sorry to be talking about about my headcanons on your post another word I LOVE THEM 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 ALWAYS READY TO READ MORE 👍👍👍👍👍

I need to know your Ra and Thoth headcanons 👁 (if you have any (please (also don't delete this blog I love your posts too much....)))

love LOVE LOVE talking about Ra and i do have some ideas for Thoth i cannot believe i haven't made hc's for him yet so, this will mostly be about Thoth. for more Ra, please check my hc masterlist.

ok. let's start at the START! egyptian myth, imo, is even more difficult than greek myth to trace down. everybody seems to have their own myths about things... like for some people, Atem was the ultimate creator, then for others it was Ptah. who even knows.

so with Thoth, generally speaking, he doesn't have any clearly identified parents, it's either like. he ALWAYS existed or Ra made him.

to me, if you just spawned at the beginning of time, then you're kinda like. ancient and primordial, but my version of Thoth is not like that.. so i personally think he was made by Ra without any mother goddess, just sculpted from the earth or something. this is the same as Hathor and Sekhmet and Bastet, etc.

technically speaking, i guess they'd be siblings, but i think their bonds are more complicated (?) than just traditional brothers and sisters, and i don't think they were "raised" together if you can even call it that.

i think Thoth was Ra's second "child", after Ma'at, who was made "in place" of chaos. and i think, like Ma'at, he was born fully grown.

because he's fully grown, i think there wasn't a "socialising" period for him? like. Thoth, to me, is a numbers guy. a logic guy. everything is equations to him, it's not emotional.

Ra creates Thoth to be a knowledge-keeper. he's supposed to be... in a sense... omniscient. all-knowing. story-wise, i think being omniscient doesn't make too much sense because like, if he knew everything, why didn't he stop Set from chopping up Osiris? so i think that, in the regular form that Thoth takes to walk in Egypt amongst men and gods, his powers are sort of... limited.

i think he has some sort of deeper, more chaotic form in which he truly can access every bit of knowledge he has.

there is an item in Egyptian mythology called the book of Thoth. actually, lore says it contains spells to perceive the gods and to talk to animals, but in my opinion, it is actually a book which contains all the knowledge of the universe.

myth says that the book was entrusted by Thoth to the ghost of a mortal scribe, Neferkaptah, never to be used by another mortal, and i think any other gods. so i think that this book is directly linked to Thoth's conscience.

therefore, when Thoth interacts with other gods, i think he doesn't really know everything because all his knowledge is locked away in the Book. but he's still super smart and can figure things out. he locks away the knowledge i think because it is too much information to be handled by any one god, and it interferes with fate.

lore usually says that Thoth travels with Ra on his barque, but i disagree with this. i believe Thoth remains in Egypt as an advisor to the king-- he has advised Geb, and Osiris... begrudingly Set for his temporary take-over, and eventually Horus. he's the go-to on matters concerning the law and counsel.

linked to this, his wife is Ma'at, who is justice. i actually think of her as being a lot of fun.. she's lively and basically the opposite of Thoth,,, but i think they are united by their strong sense of morality, and they are both as old as each other-- therefore they have been companions for the longest time and know each other intimately.

in saying that, Thoth has gone on the barque many times. but i just think he's more useful as an advisor to the pharaoh.

when Set takes over Egypt, i believe Thoth does everything within the law to help Isis. lore says he gives her the spell to revive Osiris.

but while Nephthys and Isis fight because they don't think Set is good for Egypt and also because he's a bit of a bitch, Thoth's motivations are purely logical-- Set acquires the throne illegally and needs to be reprimanded.

Thoth would not lie. not even to Set.

uhmmm. anyways. so yeah. that is Thoth in my head!!!

Sketchbook (again)

Something something sketchbooks

(Ignore the jojo siwa it was an inside joke between me and my sister)