Statue of Ramesses III with Horus and Seth
In this rare granite ensemble from Medinet Habu, King Ramesses III stands majestically between two ancient rivals, Horus and Seth; gods far more accustomed to crossing spears than sharing a plinth.
All three figures rise to roughly equal height, carved fully in the round, their left legs striding forward in timeless assertion. The pharaoh, clad in a finely pleated shendyt kilt and adorned with the many-rowed usekh collar, wears the white hedjet crown of Upper Egypt; in one hand he clasps the ankh of life, in the other the sceptre of power.
To his right, falcon-headed Horus, his palm hovering against the royal crown in a gesture of consecration. To his left, and rather astonishingly, stands Seth, lord of desert gales and distant frontiers, performing the identical rite.
Statues of Seth are exceedingly scarce. After his mythical slaying of Osiris and long war against Horus, he became an ambivalent deity: feared, needed, powerful, but seldom honoured in temple sculpture. Yet, Egyptian theology granted him dominion over arid lands and foreign peoples. Thus, the tableau proclaims a double coronation: Horus bestows rule over the fertile Nile Valley, while Seth (tamed, for the moment) confers authority beyond Egypt’s cultivated borders.
Fashioned during the 20th Dynasty, this grouping not only celebrates Ramesses III’s sovereignty at home and abroad but also reminds us that even the storm-god of chaos could be harnessed to uphold royal order, if only for as long as the granite endures. One of the very few monuments to depict Seth in harmonious attendance, it is as exceptional as the mythic détente it portrays.
Horus, Seth, and the Balance of Kingship
The epic struggle between Horus and Seth, played out in a cycle of myth older than the pyramids, tells of the murder of Osiris, the contest for the throne, and the long, quarrelsome trials set before the gods. Horus embodies rightful succession, the green flourishing lands, and the steady order of the Nile. Seth represents the desert’s red fury, the storms that batter Egypt’s borders, and the necessary but dangerous energy of the untamed world.
To place a king between them is therefore no act of whimsy, but a profound theological statement. The pharaoh alone could stand at the axis where opposites meet. He was the living fulcrum between the Black Land and the Red, civilisation and wilderness, order (Ma’at) and chaos (Isfet). By showing Horus and Seth in equal stature, performing the same blessing, the artist was not smoothing over ancient grievances but proclaiming that in the presence of Egypt’s ruler, cosmic tension became cosmic balance.
Life-size triads of this kind are extraordinarily rare; rarer still is the dignity granted to Seth, a god far more commonly depicted being speared, bound, or subdued. Here, he is neither foe nor monster, but an indispensable force enlisted (as Horus was) to support the earthly and divine authority of Ramesses III.
This remarkable sculpture thus reveals a fleeting moment of harmony in Egypt’s eternal drama of rival gods, and a king who claimed mastery over them both.
Summary:
Granite statue of king Ramesses III, flanked by Horus & Seth
New Kingdom, 20th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses III, c. 1186-1155 B.C.
From Medinet Habu
Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 31628
