Horus

Horus is written ḥr / ḥrw and depicted as a falcon-headed man or a white-faced falcon. As usual with gods and mythical creatures in general, all his attributes are puns with his name. This means he too was created from puns.

• Horus is depicted as a white-faced falcon, because ḥr means “face”. The same word was probably a name for this specific falcon. The same word is also translated as “mask”, derived from “[false] face”. 🡻
• Horus may also be depicted as a white-veiled falcon, perhaps because ḫrd means “veil”. 🡻 (The D seems off, but there’s a variant without it, and we’ll find another D pun below, with Horus being a ẖrd “child”.)
• Horus may be depicted as the (existing) white-faced falcon, because bȝq “white” & “bright” puns with bjk “falcon”. (Both words also pun with “spying” & “servant”, see below.) 🡻
• Horus becomes the ruler of Egypt, because ḥr for “face” also means “foreman” & “master”. 🡻
• Horus is the god of the sky, because ḥrw / ḥrt for “face” also means “sky” (via face & head as “upper part”). 🡻
• Horus is depicted as a child, because ẖrd means “child” & “boy”. 🡻
• Horus is depicted as a child, perhaps also because bjk “falcon” puns with bkȝ “pregnancy”. 🡻
• Horus is depicted as a child, perhaps also because ḥry means “child”. The pun works better here, but the word is rarely attested. 🡻
• Horus represents Lower Egypt specifically, because ẖr means “lower”. 🡻
• Horus was made the enemy of Seth, because ḫrw means “enemy” (while Seth puns with sṯȝw for “attacker”). 🡻
• Horus rips off Seth’s testicles, because ẖrwy means “testicles” (from ẖr for “lower”). 🡻
• Horus loses and searches for his eye, because ḥḥ-jr means “missing & searching an eye”. Since consonant duplication, vowels & suffixes were ignored by the ancient punners, ḥḥ-jr “missing eye” puns with ḥrw “Horus”. 🡻
• Horus & Seth are spook symbols, because ḥr-stḫ means “hidden ruler”.
• Horus & Isis are spook symbols, perhaps because ẖry-st means “instead of”, hinting at false representation & fakery. (Like other such expressions, it’s derived from “down” by putting a thing “down” in place of the other.) 🡻
• Horus is a spook symbol, perhaps because ẖrt means “deceit”. 🡻
• Horus is a spook symbol, perhaps because n-ḥr meaning “of face” is also an expression for disguising.
• Horus is a spook symbol, perhaps because bjk-ḥr “face-falcon” and bȝq-ḥr “white face” both pun with bȝk-ḥr “masked servant” and bȝq-ḥr “masked spy”. A combined bjk-bȝq-ḥr “white-faced falcon” would pun with bȝk-bȝq-ḥr “masked spying servant”. 🡻