Egyptian god with the head of a falcon. Horus was worshipped, in a number of forms, in various parts of Egypt. Originally he was a sky god whose eyes were the Sun and Moon and whose wings reached the boundaries of the Earth. His cult probably originated in the Nile Delta; towards the beginning of the historical era it spread throughout Egypt, sometimes superimposing itself on existing local cults. There were to main divisions of the myths about Horus, which later became fused. In the first he was the victorious adversary of Set and the protector of the kingdom, who was incarnated on Earth in the form of the Pharaoh. In the second he was the posthumous son of Osiris, brought up by his mother Isis in the marshes of the Nile Delta and called Horus the Child. He was responsible for bringing his father's murderer to justice. In art and sculpture shown as a mounted warrior with the head of a hawk, but usually as a chubby infant sucking his finger.

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