Who is Horus, the Egyptian falcon god?

Horus (Egyptian Heru) was the falcon god of the sky and of kingship in ancient Egypt. In the best-known myth he is the son of Isis and Osiris: after Set murdered Osiris, Isis bore Horus and hid him in the marshes of the Nile Delta. Grown up, Horus fought Set and claimed his father’s throne. Every living king was seen as Horus on earth. The eye he lost in the fight and had made whole again became the Eye of Horus, a sign of protection.

Who he was in Egypt: Horus was one of the oldest gods of Egypt, a sky god whose eyes were said to be the sun and the moon. His name also covers a family of related gods: Horus the Elder (Haroeris), Horus son of Isis, Horus the Child (Harpocrates), Horus of Behdet, the winged sun disk, and Ra-Horakhty, Horus joined with the sun god Ra. His temple at Edfu is one of the best preserved in Egypt.
His signs and animals: Horus is shown as a falcon, or as a man with a falcon’s head, often wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Eye of Horus, the wedjat or “sound one”, is a human eye with a falcon’s markings beneath it, and was one of the most common amulets in Egypt. Horus the Child is a boy with a finger to his lips and the side-lock of youth.
How Gerald Massey read him in 1907: Horus is the centre of Massey’s book, named more often than any other god. Massey writes Har as well as Horus, and reads two Horuses: Har-Ur, the elder Horus, the mother’s child, mortal in the flesh; and the second Horus, the father’s son, risen from the dead in spirit. He also calls Horus Iusa, “the coming son”. He argues that the story of Jesus grew from the Horus myth, and lists the likenesses in his appendix.
What scholars say now: The roles of Horus as falcon god, son of Isis and god of kingship are well attested. Egyptologists also distinguish several Horuses, but in Egyptian sources Horus the Elder is a grown sky god, not the child, and Massey’s two stages of the soul are his own reading. Iusa is not a god known under that name. Many of Massey’s parallels with Jesus, such as a virgin birth, twelve disciples and a crucifixion, are not found in Egyptian sources, and scholars do not accept that the Gospels were copied from the Horus myth. Likenesses of theme, such as a divine mother and child, are real and still discussed.
Where you meet him today: Granite falcons of Horus stand in his temple at Edfu. The Eye of Horus is still worn as jewellery, and his falcon is the emblem of EgyptAir.
In Massey’s words: “Horus begins his work by carrying out the divine plans of his father Osiris on earth.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book IV, p. 228)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Eye of Horus. In the app, the Symbol Trainer explains the Eye of Horus and the falcon, each with Massey’s own words, and the Word Trainer sets his spellings Har and Har-Ur beside today’s names.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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