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In Egyptian mythology,
Sopdu (also spelt Septu, or Sopedu) was originally the scorching
heat of the summer sun. Sopdu's name, meaning with Sopd, derives
from this heat arriving shortly after the star Sirius has
its heliacal rising, and thus being seen as coming with Sopdet,
Sopdet being the deification of Sirius
(Sopd is the masculine form of Sopdet).
Indeed, it was said that Sopdet gave
birth to this heat, and so Sopdu was seen as her child. The
Greeks made a similar conclusion; the greek name Sirius essentially
means scorcher.
The effects of the scorching of the sun lead many ancient
cultures to see it as war-like, and the Egyptians were no
different in this respect, with Sopdu consequently being seen
as a war god. Because heliacal rising occurs in the east,
and the sun's heat begins there daily, Sopdu was referred
to as Lord of the East, and had his greatest cult centre at
the easternmost nome of Lower Egypt, which was named Per-Sopdu,
meaning place of Sopdu. The combination of being a war-god,
and being associated with the easternmost edge, lead to Sopdu
being depicted as an Asiatic warrier, with a shemset girdle
and long axe, and more generally being said to guard Egypt's
borders. When the Egyptians conquered Sinai, he was also thought
to guard the turquoise mines, which predominantly lay within
Sinai.
His name is composed of the hieroglyph for sharp, a pointed
triangle, and the 3rd person plural suffix (a Quail); thus
a literal translation of his name is sharp ones. However,
the triangle glyph was really a representation of a plant
thorn, which the egyptians referred to as a tooth, and so
his name could be seen as the plural of tooth, i.e. teeth.
Consequently, war-gods also being associated with death, he
was said, in the Pyramid Texts, to protect the teeth of the
deceased.
By the Middle Kingdom, as a war-deity, he became strongly associated
the pharaoh, which, together with his being god of the sky,
lead to an association with Horus, the sky god, who was said
to be the pharaoh's patron. Consequently, Sopdu started being
depicted as wearing the two falcon feathers as a headdress,
that represented Horus, who was seen as a falcon. He also started
being identified as the standard bearer of Horus - gaining the
glyph of a falcon on a standard in his name. By this time, the
plural suffix of his name, previously a glyph of a quail, was
shown with the hieratic abbreviation - a swirl, which often
leads to misinterpretations of the standard depicting the quail,
which appears to have otherwise vanished. Eventually, the association
with Horus lead to his identity gradually merging to Horus,
and in the New Kingdom, he was referred to as Har-Septu, an
aspect of Horus rather than an individual.
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