Sopdu (also rendered Septu or Sopedu) was a

god In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

of the sky and of eastern border regions in the religion of Ancient Egypt.Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). ''The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson. p. 211 He was Khensit's husband. As a sky god, Sopdu was connected with the god Sah, the personification of the constellation Orion, and the goddess

Sopdet Sopdet is the ancient Egyptian name of the star Sirius and its personification as an Egyptian goddess. Known to the Greeks as Sothis, she was conflated with Isis as a goddess and Anubis as a god. Names The exact pronunciation of ancien ...

, representing the star

Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CM ...

. According to the

Pyramid Texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterran ...

, Horus-Sopdu, a combination of Sopdu and the greater sky god

Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the ...

, is the offspring of

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

-Sah and

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...

-Sopdet. As a god of the east, Sopdu was said to protect Egyptian outposts along the frontiers and to help the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...

control those regions' foreign inhabitants. He was referred to as ''Lord of the East'', and had his greatest

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

centre at the easternmost nome of

Lower Egypt Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...

, which was named

Per-Sopdu Saft el-Hinna ( ar, صفط الحنا, translit=Ṣafṭ al-Ḥinnā), also written as Saft el-Hinneh, Saft el-Henna, Saft el-Henneh, is a village and an archaeological site in Egypt. It is located in the modern Al Sharqia Governorate, in the Ni ...

, meaning ''place of Sopdu''. He also had shrines at Egyptian settlements in the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a ...

, such as the turquoise mines at

Serabit el-Khadim Serabit el-Khadim ( ar, سرابيط الخادم ; also transliterated Serabit al-Khadim, Serabit el-Khadem) is a locality in the southwest Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, where turquoise was mined extensively in antiquity, mainly by the ancient Egypt ...

Name

Sopdu's name is composed of the

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

for ''sharp'', a pointed

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

, and the 3rd person plural

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...

); thus a literal translation of his name is ''sharp ones''.''Greek and Egyptian Mythologies'' By Yves Bonnefoy and Wendy Doniger, p. 221. University of Chicago Press, 1992 He was said, in the Pyramid Texts, to protect the teeth of the deceased pharaoh. Sopdu was depicted as a falcon sitting on a religious standard, often with a two-feathered crown on his head and a

flail A flail is an agriculture, agricultural tool used for threshing, the process of separating cereal, grains from their husks. It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the othe ...

over his shoulder. In his border-guarding role he was shown as a

Near Eastern The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

warrior, with a '' shemset'' girdle and an axe or spear.

Gallery

File:Berlin 122009 018b.jpg, A relief of Sopdu from the mortuary temple of Sahure at Abusir. File:Lintel of Raiay, the King's scribe, and the first god's servant of Sopdu Nakht. Both stand before Osiris. 19th Dynasty. From Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.jpg, Lintel of Raiay, the King's scribe, and the first god's servant of Sopdu Nakht. Both stand before Osiris. 19th Dynasty. From Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London

References

External links

* {{Authority control Egyptian gods Sky and weather gods