Set’s Family Tree

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Relationships & Genealogy(33 connections)

About Set

Family
  • Geb(parent),Nut(parent),Horus the Elder(sibling),Isis(sibling),Nephthys(sibling),Osiris(sibling)Marriage

    Geb and Nut bore five children during the epagomenal days won by Thoth: Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, who became the central figures of Egyptian mythology.

  • Horus(spouse),Thoth(child)Consort · Miraculous

    In the Contendings of Horus and Set, Horus's seed entered Set through trickery, and Thoth emerged from Set's forehead as a golden disc.

    The Contendings tradition is one of several competing accounts of Thoth's origin. Hermopolitan theology presents him as self-created, and Coffin Text spells describe him as emerging from Ra.

  • Nephthys(spouse),Anubis(child)Marriage

    Anubis is the son of Nephthys and Set in earlier Egyptian texts, placing the jackal god within the Ennead through his father's lineage.

    The dominant later tradition, recorded by Plutarch, names Osiris as Anubis's father through Nephthys's deception. The Set-parentage appears in earlier texts before this narrative became standard.

  • Anat(spouse)Consort

    Ra gave the Canaanite warrior goddess Anat to Set as a consort after awarding the throne of Egypt to Horus, a consolation prize for the defeated god of storms.

  • Astarte(spouse)Consort

    Ra gave Astarte to Set as a consort alongside Anat, the Canaanite goddess of war and desire joining the storm god in his desert domain after Horus claimed the Egyptian throne.

  • Taweret(spouse)Consort

    Taweret was bound to Set as his consort, the fearsome hippopotamus goddess yoked to the lord of storms and chaos.

  • Wepwawet(child)

    Set sired Wepwawet the wolf-headed opener of ways, the son who inherited his father's ferocity but turned it to guiding the dead through the Duat rather than sowing chaos among the living.

    Coffin Text Spell 1049 names Set as father; Abydos festival texts associate Wepwawet with Osiris instead, reflecting local theological priorities.

Allied with
  • Set stands at the prow of Ra's solar barque each night, spearing the serpent Apophis to protect the sun god during his perilous journey through the Duat.

Enemy of
  • Anubis opposed Set during and after the murder of Osiris, defeating him in combat and branding him with a hot iron as punishment for the dismemberment of the dead god.

  • Set and Apophis are locked in nightly combat aboard Ra's solar barque as it passes through the Duat, with Set spearing the chaos serpent to prevent it from devouring the sun.

  • Horus and Set battled for eighty years over the throne of Egypt in the Contendings, fighting as hippopotami in the river, in the courts of the gods, and through cunning and magic until the Ennead awarded Horus his father's crown.

  • Horus the Elder and Set waged a cosmic struggle that predates the Osirian cycle, tearing at each other until Set ripped out Horus's eye and Horus seized Set's testicles, neither able to destroy the other.

  • Isis opposed Set after he murdered her husband Osiris, and she championed her son Horus's claim to the throne during the Contendings of Horus and Set.

  • Despite being Set's wife, Nephthys bore Anubis through a union with Osiris and ultimately sided with Isis against Set in the aftermath of Osiris's murder.

  • Set and Osiris were rivals for the kingship of Egypt. Set's jealousy of Osiris's rule led him to murder his brother by tricking him into a coffin, then dismembering the body and scattering it across Egypt.

  • Taweret turned against her consort Set and joined the forces of Horus, the hippopotamus goddess wielding her ferocity against the lord of chaos she once stood beside.

Slew
  • Set murdered and dismembered Osiris, scattering his body parts across Egypt in an act of fratricidal rage.

Member of
  • The Great Ennead of Heliopolis comprises Atum and his eight descendants — Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys — forming the principal divine family of Egyptian theology.

Equivalent to
  • Typhon(Greek)

    Plutarch consistently names Set as Typhon throughout De Iside et Osiride, and Greeks living in Ptolemaic Egypt adopted this identification in cult and literary practice, treating the two as the same deity across traditions.

Associated with
  • The Ennead sat as divine tribunal in the Contendings of Horus and Set, deliberating for eighty years over which god should inherit Osiris's throne before finally awarding the kingship to Horus.

  • Set seized the crook and flail of kingship after murdering Osiris, claiming the royal regalia for himself until the divine tribunal awarded them to Horus.

  • Set gouged out the Eye of Horus and tore it into pieces during their eighty-year battle for the throne of Egypt, an act of violence against the principle of cosmic order.

  • Geb judged between Horus and Set in the Contendings, initially dividing Egypt between them before ultimately confirming Horus as sole ruler.

  • Neith's judgment in the Contendings awarded the throne to Horus over Set, but she decreed that Set be compensated with foreign lands and divine wives to prevent him from disrupting cosmic order.

  • Throughout the Contendings of Horus and Set, Thoth mediated between the two rivals, recording their ordeals and arguments while steering the tribunal toward a resolution that would restore order to the Two Lands.

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