A collective term for a number of gods depicted either as hawk-headed men or as full hawks, Horus symbolizes leadership of all sorts and specifically the leadership demonstrated in the position of Pharaoh of Egypt.

It was Horus, who, upon reaching adulthood, avenged Osiris' death by defeating and castrating Set and becoming the divine prototype of the Pharaoh.

Horus was known even before the advent of hieroglyphic writing from depictions on Predynastic pottery and walls showing hawks or standards with a hawk sitting atop them. Predynastic and Early Dynastic kings wrote their names within a serekh -- an image of a palace with a hawk set on its roof. In the hawk the Egyptians observed the quickness, intelligence, alertness and staying power of a just ruler -- nothing escaped the watchful eye of the true Horus, and no wrongdoer escaped His claws.

Earlier forms of Horus depict Him as an abstract sky-god, with the sun and moon his two eyes; later ones depict him as anything from Victory personified to the son of the "Lord of the Dead", Heru-sa-Aset, who would become the most popular form of Horus in the later periods.

The first kings to unify Egypt came from Hierakonpolis (Nekhem), the cult center of Horus. So when Hierakonpolis became Egypt's most powerful city, Horus became the god above all others. The kings proclaimed themselves to be the living embodiment of the Hawk God.