Eye of Horus
Encyclopedia
The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian symbol of protection, royal power and good health. The eye is personified in the goddess Wadjet
Wadjet
In Egyptian mythology, Wadjet, or the Green One , was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep , which became part of the city that the Egyptians named Per-Wadjet, House of...

(also written as Wedjat,Uadjet, Wedjoyet, Edjo or Uto and as The Eye of Ra or "Udjat"). The name Wadjet is derived from "wadj" meaning "green" hence "the green one" and was known to the Greeks and Romans as "uraeus" from the Egyptian "iaret" meaning "risen one" from the image of a cobra
Cobra
Cobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...

 rising up in protection.

Wadjet
Wadjet
In Egyptian mythology, Wadjet, or the Green One , was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep , which became part of the city that the Egyptians named Per-Wadjet, House of...

 was one of the earliest of Egyptian deities who later became associated with other goddesses such as Bast, Sekhmet
Sekhmet
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet , was originally the warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing for Upper Egypt. She is depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. It was said that her breath created the desert...

, Mut
Mut
Mut, which meant mother in the ancient Egyptian language, was an ancient Egyptian mother goddess with multiple aspects that changed over the thousands of years of the culture. Alternative spellings are Maut and Mout. She was considered a primal deity, associated with the waters from which...

, and Hathor
Hathor
Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...

. She was the tutelary deity of Lower Egypt and the major Delta shrine the "per-nu" was under her protection. Hathor is also depicted with this eye. Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of Horus. The Wedjat or Eye of Horus is "the central element" of seven "gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, faience
Faience
Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated with Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip...

, carnelian
Carnelian
Carnelian is a brownish-red mineral which is commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker...

 and lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli is a relatively rare semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue color....

" bracelets found on the mummy of Shoshenq II
Shoshenq II
Heqakheperre Shoshenq II was an Egyptian king of the 22nd dynasty of Egypt. He was the only ruler of this Dynasty whose tomb was not plundered by tomb robbers. His final resting place was discovered within Psusennes I's tomb at Tanis by Pierre Montet in 1939. Montet removed the coffin lid of...

. The Wedjat "was intended to protect the king [here] in the afterlife" and to ward off evil. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint the symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel.

Horus

Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

 was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was usually depicted as a falcon
Falcon
A falcon is any species of raptor in the genus Falco. The genus contains 37 species, widely distributed throughout Europe, Asia, and North America....

, most likely a lanner
Lanner Falcon
The Lanner Falcon is a large bird of prey that breeds in Africa, southeast Europe and just into Asia. It is mainly resident, but some birds disperse more widely after the breeding season.-Description:...

 or peregrine falcon
Peregrine Falcon
The Peregrine Falcon , also known as the Peregrine, and historically as the Duck Hawk in North America, is a widespread bird of prey in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-gray back, barred white underparts, and a black head and "moustache"...

. His right eye was associated with the sun Ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...

. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop
Teardrop
Teardrop may refer to:* Tears, a liquid produced in the eyes for cleaning and lubricating* Teardrop attacks, a remote denial-of-service attack * Teardrop trailer, a type of travel trailer* Teardrop hull, a submarine hull design...

" marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 and the god Djehuti (Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

).

The eye as hieroglyph and symbol

There are seven different hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

s used to represent the eye, most commonly "ir.t" in Egyptian, which also has the meaning "to make or do" or "one who does." In Egyptian myth the eye was not the passive organ of sight but more an agent of action, protection or wrath.

In arithmetic

In the Ancient Egyptian measurement system, the Eye Of Horus defined Old Kingdom number one (1) = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64, by throwing away 1/64 for any rational number. Eye of Horus numbers created six-term rounded-off numbers. The Old Kingdom definition has dropped a seventh term, a remainder 1/64, that was needed to report exact series. During the Middle Kingdom
Middle Kingdom of Egypt
The Middle Kingdom of Egypt is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2055 BC and 1650 BC, although some writers include the Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties in the Second Intermediate...

 that included the eleventh through fourteenth dynasties, exact series definitions and applications were often written by 6-terms, or less. The Egyptian fraction notation scaled to volume unit remainders to 1/320 hekat
Hekat (volume)
The hekat or heqat was an ancient Egyptian volume unit used to measure grain, bread, and beer. Until the New Kingdom the hekat was one tenth of a khar, later one sixteenth; while the New Kingdom oipe contained 4 hekat...

. For example, the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll
Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll
The Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll was a 10 × 17 in leather roll purchased by Alexander Henry Rhind in 1858...

, the RMP 2/n table and the Akhmim Wooden Tablet
Akhmim wooden tablet
The Akhmim wooden tablets or Cairo wooden tablets are two ancient Egyptian wooden writing tablets. They each measure about 18 by 10 inches and are covered with plaster. The tablets are inscribed on both sides. The inscriptions on the first tablet includes a list of servants, which is followed...

 wrote binary quotients and scaled remainders. The metaphorical side of this information linked Old Kingdom fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64, to separate parts of the eye.

In the Middle Kingdom the 1/64 symbol denoted "rest" and "healing" as connected to the hekat, with the word dja being attached.

The "Eye of Horus" fractions were further discussed in the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll
Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll
The Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll was a 10 × 17 in leather roll purchased by Alexander Henry Rhind in 1858...

 following elementary definitions that built the Egyptian fraction system. Weights and measure subunits of a hekat were also connected to Eye of Horus numbers in the quotient, and as an exact remainder, the remainder including an Egyptian fraction and a ro unit, correcting the Eye of Horus 1/64 roundoff error. The ro unit, 1/320 of a hekat, is cited in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus , is named after Alexander Henry Rhind, a Scottish antiquarian, who purchased the papyrus in 1858 in Luxor, Egypt; it was apparently found during illegal excavations in or near the Ramesseum. It dates to around 1650 BC...

 and applied in the medical texts, i.e. Ebers Papyrus
Ebers papyrus
The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus dating to circa 1550 BC. Among the oldest and most important medical papyri of ancient Egypt, it was purchased at Luxor, in the winter of 1873–74 by Georg Ebers...

 in two ways. The first replaced the hekat by a unity, 64/64 (in RMP 47, 82 and 83), and the second by 320 ro (in RMP 35–38). Exact divisions of 64/64 by 3, 7, 10, 11 and 13, written as 1/3, 1/17, 1/10, 1/11 and 1/13 multipliers, are also found in the Akhmim Wooden Tablet
Akhmim wooden tablet
The Akhmim wooden tablets or Cairo wooden tablets are two ancient Egyptian wooden writing tablets. They each measure about 18 by 10 inches and are covered with plaster. The tablets are inscribed on both sides. The inscriptions on the first tablet includes a list of servants, which is followed...

.
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