16 July: Set, Egyptian god of chaos

Today, according to the ancient Egyptians, is the birthday of the Egyptian god, Set. 10 facts about him.

1. Set is also called Seth, Setesh, Sutekh, Setekh, or Suty. His epithets were the "Powerful one of Thebes," and "Ruler of the South", "Powerful is His Mighty Arm" and "Lord of the desert".
2. He is the god of chaos and all things chaotic - the desert, storms, disorder, violence foreigners (the lands beyond the desert), Earthquakes (in a novel called American Gods, he is mentioned as being responsible for the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906) and eclipses.
3. His glyph appears in the Egyptian words for "turmoil", "confusion", "illness", "storm" and "rage".
4. He is the son of Nut, the sky goddess and the earth god Geb. Even at birth, he is said to have ripped himself violently from his mother's womb rather than being born normally.
5. Set's siblings are Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys. According to Egyptian mythology, Set was wildly jealous of Osiris and killed an mutilated him. Isis managed to conceive a son from Osiris' corpse - Horus, who grew up vowing revenge on his father's killer. There are many myths surrounding their battles and contests. One such is where they challenged each other to a boat race in boats made of stone. Perhaps surprisingly, Horus was the one who cheated and used a wooden boat made to look like stone and won that particular contest.
6. Like many Egyptian deities, Set is represented with the head of an animal, although it is not one that is known to science - hence it is referred to as the "Set Animal". This animal has a curved snout like an aardvark, long ears like a fennec fox, a canine body like a jackal and a thin forked tail. Whether it was meant to be a composite of different animals, or whether it is a real creature that existed once but is now extinct, nobody knows. Some Egyptologists have suggested it was supposed to be a giraffe, but the Egyptians themselves saw the Giraffe as a different creature to the Set Animal.
7. Set was on a strict diet - he only ever ate Lettuce.
8. According to myth, he was the black boar who swallowed the Moon every month.
9. He had a number of wives. He was married to his sister Nephthys, Taweret, the hippo goddess of childbirth, Anat and Astarte (war goddesses from the Syria-Palestine area and daughters of Ra) among others, and had concubines as well. According to myth, he was bisexual and once tried to rape Horus.
10. Although mostly portrayed as a dark, evil god, he has a positive role, too. He is often portrayed riding Ra's chariot of the Sun, fighting off the serpent of chaos.