Horus Behdety – The Winged Disk
(Horus Gods – Part 3 of 3)
Kings with Wings
In the Pyramid Texts there are many descriptions of kings adorning the wings of a falcon.
His (the King’s) two wings have grown into (those of) a falcon, his two plumes are (those of) a sacred falcon.”
(PT 250 cWN)
The King ascends to heaven to thy presence, O Re. The face of the King is (that of) falcons. The wings of the king are (those of ) birds, his talons are the claws of ‘Anty-wy.’
(PT 461 a-d WPN)
He (the King) ascends to heaven. The top of his wings is (that of) a great bird.
(PT 1122 a PN)
The cartouches of Ramesses the Great (Mars) alongside (thus to be associated with) Horus Behdety.
The winged disk of Tutankhamun Mars as Horus Behdety incarnate. Tutankhamun (“The Lordly Manifestation of Re”) is clearly named via the two cartouches directly below the incandescent Mars.
Making sense of the imagery.
Although it was the astral kings with their winged attributes who gave rise to Horus Behdety (and were so named, as shown above), in later times the winged disk became a natural divine symbol of protection taking pride of place over temple doorways and on the rounded top of stela, etc.
In other words, wherever we see the winged disk it doesn’t signify Mercury (or any other another body) was present in full bloom above. On the contrary, Behdety developed into yet another form of the sky god Horus – a Horus who adorned the very distinctive and aesthetically pleasing traits of wings. And as with the previously discussed Horus,’ he could be called upon (along with other Horus forms) as and when the situation or image required.
I would offer the very simple formula: If the winged disk has below it a cartouche (as in the above image, the kings name), then it represents, as Sir Alan Gardiner correctly surmised, the ‘actual person’ of the king – a celestial king as he actually appeared at the time of construction of the said artefact. If on the other hand, a cartouche isn’t in sight as in the image below, then we are dealing with more of a universal emblem of protection.
Confused? What do you expect given An Ancient World in Chaos!
What follows is a collection of images and my interpretation.
Horus Behdety, a later universal symbol of protection. If the winged disk represents the Sun at midday, how was it possible to discern the spherical shape with the sun’s glare? Moreover, why did the Egyptians paint the globe RED (the globe was once painted red) and not yellow?
The capitols here are symbolic of Lightning Sprites reaching out into the heavens. As with the Winged Disk, such symbolism was ubiquitous throughout the ancient world. Something I’ll be writing about in the future.
Top of the stela is Horus Behdety as indentified by the hieroglyphs. Below, an adoration of the gods Re-Horakhty (wearing the usual red disk) and Atum (Zodiacal light) who wears the joint crown of upper and lower Egypt. Re-Horakhty and Horus Behdety were often shown together as in the image below.
A royal offering to Ra-Horakhty, the ‘Great God, Lord of the Sky.’ Again, in the presence of the winged Behdety as identified by the text. The ‘Re Horus of the Horizons’ and the all encompassing Horus Behdety, praised by the deceased, who incidentally, wears a ‘comet’ on her head.
