Horus Bull of the Sky (Saturn)

HOR-us bull of the sky

egyptian: Ḥr-kꜣ-pt

Definition

Horus Bull of the Sky is the Egyptian name for the planet Saturn (Egyptian Ḥr-kꜣ-pt). It is often regarded as one of the clearest and most stable of the Egyptian planet-names. In the Late Period it was often shortened to Ḥr-kꜣ, or, with the Demotic article, Ḥr-pꜣ-kꜣ, "Horus the bull." Saturn is one of the three "Horus-planets," the visible planets the Egyptians named as forms of the falcon-god Horus.

In Tradition

Egyptologists treat Saturn as the planet with one of the most stable and transparent Egyptian names. A deity called "bull of the sky" already appears in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, which has been read by some scholars as Saturn — a reading that, if correct, would push Egyptian knowledge of the planet back well over four thousand years. The bull imagery stays attached to Saturn across the whole tradition, right down to the late temple ceilings.

In Practice

In the painted sky-images Saturn appears, like the other Horus-planets, as a falcon-headed Horus standing in a boat with a star above his head — but his bull-name leaves its mark on the iconography too. On the temple of Hathor at Dendera the planets are drawn as birds with telling heads, and Saturn's bird carries a bull's head, matching his name "Horus, bull of the sky." A few of his epithets describe his motion across the sky — "the western star which crosses the sky," "the eastern star which crosses the sky" — which some scholars read as marking the slow eastward drift of the most distant visible planet. One unusual variant on Senenmut's ceiling swaps the goddess Mut for Horus, naming Saturn "Mut, bull of heaven," which scholars connect to the special role of queens under Hatshepsut. Saturn's native name can serve as an anchor for the whole Horus-planet group, since its meaning is among the least disputed.

Historical Origin

Saturn as "Horus, bull of the sky" (Ḥr-kꜣ-pt) is attested on the ceiling of Seti I (KV 17, c. 1290 BCE); Senenmut (TT 353, c. 1473 BCE) gives the exceptional "Mut, bull of heaven" variant. A possible Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts antecedent ("bull of the sky"), and the bull-headed Dendera planet-bird, are treated by Belmonte and Lull, Astronomy of Ancient Egypt (2018), and by Quack in Brown (ed.), The Interactions of Ancient Astral Science (2018), after Neugebauer & Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts Vol III.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading