What was the Typhonian Beast?

Also called the Set Animal, it is something of a historical mystery from Ancient Egypt.

The Egyptian gods had animal heads and animal forms, and were associated with animals, nearly all of which were commonplace: the ibis, the ram, eagle, etc. However, the Egyptian god Set is unique in that he is associated with a creature that is purely mythic or a creation of the imagination, the Typhonian Beast. It looks like something midway between a donkey, anteater, and a greyhound, with square long ears and a forked tail.

What was the Typhonian Beast, anyway? There are many theories. One theory is that, since it has no obviously fantastical attributes, and is seen elsewhere in Egyptian art in other contexts beyond religion or myth, it is a kind of ordinary animal that went extinct in ancient times. This isn’t too farfetched. Europe had a species of lion that went extinct in the Bronze Age (hence, stories in Greece about heroes like Hercules fighting lions). Another theory is that it is a kind of unusual breed of domesticated dog, something similar to a greyhound or saluki. The unusual tail and ears could be because of ear-clipping and body modification, which were commonly practiced.

it’s worth noting that for most of Egyptian history, Set wasn’t particularly evil. He was just another one of the gods. Many Pharaohs, like Seti, took their names in honor of him. Set was demonized when the Osiris cult of life and resurrection became prestigious, and through syncretism, Set acquired more attributes of Sutekh, the god of the barbarian invaders during the middle kingdom, giving him an association with lawlessness, random violence, and chaos. 

Sutekh/Setekh is the latinised transcription of the Middle Egyptian s(w)tẖ. This was rendered by the ancient Greeks as Σήθ, which in turn is latinised as Seth. In the US, Seth is often referred to as Set to set him apart from Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. 

Sutekh, then, was not a “god of barbarian invaders” who donated attributes to the Egyptian Seth - Sutekh is Seth. Seth was connected to foreigners from very early in Egyptian history, but for most of that history, he was considered more like a Minister of Foreign Affairs rather than the divine power behind an invading force. We know the Hyksos adopted him as their chief god, but after the Hyksos were driven out, the Egyptians considered Seth, although an outsider still an Egyptian god, to have done his duty of keeping the foreigners in check and eventually making sure they were cast out. It wasn’t until late in Egyptian history, when the invaders weren’t driven out, that he started to lose his positive qualities and became actually villified in the Egyptian tradition itself.

While Seth indeed wasn’t the god of evil, he also wasn’t “just another one of the gods”, and neither was he a particularly nice guy. His entire existence is precisely to be the antithesis to the other gods. That doesn’t mean he was completely reviled because of this, because the Egyptian religion doesn’t work that way. Seth is both a villain and a protector, a force of chaos and sometimes of evilness as well as a necessary counterweight for order, and you can’t really disconnect those concepts from each other without missing the point of Seth.

There is an outdated theory that states that Seth was worshipped by the Upper Egyptian tribe prior to the unification of Egypt, and that he was delegated to a “criminal” role in the mythology after the Lower Egyptian tribe, who worshipped Horus, came out on top in the political struggle. Although Seth’s main cult was down south - mostly located in Nubet (Kom Ombo) -, the idea that he went from perfectly regular god to criminal of the pantheon because of a war is to simplify religious concepts in a way they cannot be simplified. While there might be some basis to this theory, we have to study this from a religious point of view instead of a political one, because the political one is always going to fall short.

As for his appearance, Seth was identified with a lot more animals than just the Seth-animal. He could be portrayed as a bull, a crocodile, or an ass, among others. So he’s not only associated with a fantastical creature - like a number of other gods in the pantheon, Seth had multiple animals to which he was connected. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the theory that the Seth-animal is an unknown, now-extinct species that used to live in Egypt is technically possible but improbable in light of the available evidence. The same goes for the “it’s a breed of dog that had its body modificated”. The prevailing opinion is that the Seth-animal is a fantastical creature made up of the parts of various other animals, some of which might never have existed themselves.

As a minor aside, it was not called the “Typhonian beast” by the Egyptians themselves. The Greeks equated Seth with Typhon, and thus the phrase “Typhonian beast” became eponymous with the Seth-animal. I also wouldn’t call it a historical mystery. No, we’re not absolutely 100% certain of its origin, but that’s not actually so very different from the rest of ancient Egypt - or ancient history as a whole -, anyway.