What does the Eye of Horus mean?

The eye Horus lost in his fight with Set and had made whole again. It means wholeness and protection, and was the most common amulet in Egypt.

What the sign shows: A human eye with the markings of a falcon’s face beneath it.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Massey ties it to the moon: an eye put out in the dark half of the month and restored, and so a charm against the powers of darkness.
Where you see it today: Worn as jewellery everywhere. It is often confused with the eye on the United States dollar bill, which is a different symbol with a different history.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 26 times across the book. Book XII, p. 871: “The black pig in the night”; Book X, p. 629: “Down from the mountain, up from below”; Book XII, p. 816: “The anointing of blind Horus”.
Signs that look like it: Falcon, Sun disk and Shen ring. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “When Sut put out the eye of Horus, the darkness represented death.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book XII, p. 862)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Eye of Horus. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

Next questions