Deity · Egyptian · c. 3000 BCE
Set
Also called Seth, Sutekh, Typhon (Greek identification) · also recorded as Setesh, Setekh, Suty (per Wikidata)
Murderer of Osiris and defender of the sun-barque — a god who was worshipped as a royal patron for two millennia before being recast as the enemy.
Deep source base
For most of Egyptian history he is ambivalent but legitimate: god of the desert, foreigners and storms, patron of Nineteenth Dynasty pharaohs named after him, and — crucially — the one who stands at the prow of Ra's boat and spears Apep. Only in the Late Period, under Persian and Greek rule, does he become simply evil, at which point the Greeks identify him with Typhon and the identification sticks.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
What the name means
Egyptian *Swtẖ*, conventionally Set or Sutekh; the vocalisation is uncertain.
Where it was actually worshipped
Ombos and Avaris. Nineteenth Dynasty pharaohs — Seti I, Setnakht — were named for him, which is not what you do with a devil.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Named there as
- Seth
- Rank
- God of Storms and Disorder
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Ombos and Avaris. Nineteenth Dynasty pharaohs — Seti I, Setnakht — were named for him, which is not what you do with a devil.
- Era
- c. 3000 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian, Greek
Traits
- Domain
- Storms, the desert, foreigners, disorder
- Traditional form
- The 'Set animal' — a curved-snouted beast with squared ears
2 sites
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
Ombos, Set's own town, where he was the local god rather than the adversary.
25.941, 32.709 · Pleiades 948303834
now Qantir
The Hyksos capital, where Set was identified with the Levantine storm god.
30.786, 31.823 · Pleiades 727080
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Set, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- social1
- martial1
- malefic2
social
- Sows Discordno text cited
martial
- Guards & Wardsno text cited
Defends the solar barque against Apep.
malefic
3 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
The Cippus of Horus
Used against it
The scorpions and crocodiles the child masters are the hostile powers Set stands behind in the myth.
The Was Sceptre
Carried as an emblem
The head on the staff is most likely the Set-animal — the god of disorder crowning the sign of order.
The Wedjat Eye
Used against it
The one who tore it out; the amulet's protective claim is made against him.
3 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 3 texts that names Set, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
3 texts spanning roughly 2,450 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Seth, Set, Typhon
The adversary in the succession dispute, and not yet the enemy of the world. He is judged, he loses, and he is also invoked for his strength on the king's behalf — a god who can be both is precisely what Plutarch's later dualism has no room for. This corpus holds the two attestations side by side.
Murders and dismembers Osiris; contends with Horus; repels Apep from the barque of Ra.
The hinge of this figure's whole afterlife. Plutarch gives Set the name of the Greek monster and reads him as the principle of destruction in a dualist scheme learned from Persian material, which no Egyptian text supports — Set is an adversary there, not an evil. The reading is what Europe inherited, and it is why an Egyptian god was available to be recruited into demonology at all.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Satan
A legitimate god for two millennia, then simply the enemy — the same trajectory, far better documented.
Serves Geb
Identified with Typhon
The Greeks identified Set with Typhon outright, and the equation stuck.
Opposed by Horus
Eighty years of contendings, resolved by tribunal rather than by killing.
Opposed by Osiris
Murdered and dismembered by him.
Opposed by Nephthys
His wife, who takes her sister's side.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Afterwards
What did later readers make of it?
The Greeks identified him with Typhon and the equation stuck. Modern occultism took him up enthusiastically on the strength of the late demonisation, largely ignoring the two millennia in which he defended the sun barque nightly.
Kept in its own section on purpose. Everything above is what the cited texts say; this is what was built on top of them afterwards, and blending the two is how most popular demonology goes wrong.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Set?
Is Set the same as Satan?
What rank is Set?
How else is Set spelled?
What is Set said to do?
How old is Set?
Nearest in the corpus
If Set is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Set
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Pyramid Texts
Anonymous; carved for the kings and queens of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties · c. 2350–2100 BCE · Old Egyptian
Read The Pyramid Texts in full ↗The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · Wikimedia file page
On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride)
Plutarch of Chaeronea; tr. from the Moralia · c. 100 CE · Ancient Greek
Read On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride) in full ↗
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.