We explain what the eye of Horus is in the mythology of Ancient Egypt, its function and how it originated. In addition, we tell you who Horus was.
What is the eye of Horus?
The Eye of Horus (also called Udyat, "the one that is complete") is a symbol from the mythology of Ancient Egypt, to which connotations linked to health, protection and repair or restoration were attributed in ancient times. In modern times it was rediscovered by different esoteric currents and reinterpreted in the light of various pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.
The mythological origin of this symbol is found in the fight of Horus (god of the humanity and son of Osiris) against Seth (the god of chaos and desert). In this confrontation, Horus was victorious, but lost his left eye. Then, the Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth (in some versions it was Hathor), presented him with a magical eye called Udyat so that he could regain his sight. With the power of this new eye, Horus was able to bring Osiris's body back to life.
This story made the eye of Horus a symbol of restoration, an emblem of medicine and protection against evil. In this sense it is abundantly mentioned in the texts of the pyramids, of the sarcophagi and in the Book of the Dead (in chapter 112: "The Eye of Horus is your protection, Osiris, Lord of the Westerners, / constitutes a safeguard for you: reject all your enemies, / all your enemies are removed from you”).
Later studies of the Eye of Horus revealed that, in addition to its connotations religious, their hieroglyph it contained the total of the mathematical symbols with which the Ancient Egyptians represented the fractions. The Egyptian fractional system used agrarian measures of area and volume, beginning with powers of ½, and assigned specific symbols and strokes to a half, a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth, a thirty-second, and a sixty-fourth.
The mythological explanation of this relationship has to do with the fact that Thoth, in his search for the eye of Horus to replace it, was collecting the 64 fragments of the eye throughout Egypt: a version of the myth of the body of Osiris, who after being killed and dismembered by Set, he was reunited and mummified by Isis and Nephthys so that he could rule over the dead in the underworld.
Who was Horus?
In Egyptian mythology, Horus (hour in ancient Egyptian, "the high one" or "the distant one") was a celestial god, initiator of civilization and representative of the royalty, the war and the hunt. He was commonly depicted as a human figure with the head of a falcon, on which rested the double crown of Ancient Egypt.
Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris, two of the main gods of the Egyptian pantheon, and the pharaohs were the descendants and earthly incarnations of him. In ancient tales he represented the fertility of the Nile Valley and the hierarchical order of the Empire, elements threatened by the aridity of the desert and foreign peoples (both considered to be Seth's domain).
The eye of Horus as an amulet
The eye of Horus was inscribed on tomb walls and engraved on amulets.The eye of Horus played an important role in the religious imagery of the Ancient Egyptians, since it was attributed magical healing properties, capable of preventing the evil eye and repelling enemies.For this reason it was inscribed on the walls of tombs and mausoleums, it was engraved on amulets intended to care for children and the sick.
Some interpretations ensure that he was distinguished between the right eye and the left eye of Horus: the first was associated with the sun and, therefore, with the domains of the sky god Ra (Ra's eye), while the second was associated with the moon and the night. It was an emblem of restoration, of totality achieved and of the return to the fullness of existence.