Haroeris

haroeris.jpg Haroeris was a sky god whose eyes were the sun and the moon. His name, in Egyptian Her wer, consists of two elements, Her, Horus (literally "He who is distant / above") and wer, "great" or "the elder".

Egyptian mythology knew several gods who were distant and were (therefore) called Horus. To differentiate between them the second element wer was added. In Graeco-Roman times the Egyptian name got its Greek form, which gave the god the name by which we now know him best: Haroeris, Horus the Elder.

Haroeris was one of the five children of Nut, born on the second day of the five extra day period which was added to the year. He was the father of the four "children of Horus" (Imsety, Hapy, Qebehsenuf and Duamutef); their mother was Isis.

Haroeris was also identified with the sun god or with his son, which made it easy to also identify him with Shu, and through this to also involve him in the myth about the eye of the sun god, which Haroeris brought back from far away.

The Egyptians saw the world from different viewpoints, which in western minds sometimes seem to contradict each other. For the Egyptians these viewpoints were just multiple aspects of the one and only truth (their way of looking at things has been called "multiplicity of approaches"). For example, the one creator god was sometimes Atum of Heliopolis, sometimes Ptah of Memphis, sometimes another god. Similarly it is not strange that they could see Haroeris as the sky god as well as the son of the sky god, and that in some versions of the myth, after bringing back the eye of the sun, Haroeris (as the son) gives it back to its original owner, being also Haroeris (as the sky god).

 

 

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