Horus

In the best-known tradition recorded in Egyptian myth, Isis and Osiris are the parents of Horus: after Set murders Osiris, Isis uses magical means to conceive and raise Horus, who grows to contest Set for rulership of Egypt. The prolonged legal and physical contest (the Contendings of Horus and Seth) culminates in Horus's vindication as heir. Parallel and older traditions present an elder Horus (Heru-ur / Hrw-wr) as a primordial figure belonging to an earlier generation; Egyptian religion treats these as distinct, complementary forms rather than a single, fixed personality.

Horus is most frequently depicted as a falcon or as a man with a falcon's head, often shown wearing royal regalia such as crowns (including the Double Crown) that mark kingship. In some iconographic contexts he appears as a youthful child seated on a lotus with a finger to his mouth alongside Isis (the form later received by Greco-Roman writers as Harpocrates). As a sky deity he is imagined as a falcon traversing the sky, with the Sun and Moon conceptualized as his eyes. Modern sources commonly identify the depicted falcon species as a lanner or peregrine, though ancient Egyptian texts simply render the hieroglyph ḥr.w as 'falcon.'

Horus functions cosmically as a sky deity who contains or bears the Sun and Moon—the Sun conceived as his right eye and the Moon as his left—and his flight across the heavens explains their daily movement. Mythically he is the avenger and heir of Osiris whose contest with Set includes the loss and later restoration of his eye; the Eye of Horus (Udjat) becomes an enduring symbol of protection, royal power, and healing. Socially and ritually Horus is the divine model of the living pharaoh, invoked to guarantee royal legitimacy and to protect the king and realm.