The mystery animal on an ancient god’s head

Several Egyptian gods are depicted with animal heads. Horus has a falcon head, Anubis has a jackal head, Thoth has an ibis head (except when he’s a baboon), and Set has…uhh, what is that, exactly? Left to right: Horus, Anubis, Thoth, and Set Turns out no one knows for sure. The Greeks called it the “Typhonic beast”, while modern Egyptologists call it the “Set animal”, but either way it’s still a mystery. Let’s get some context. Ancient Egyptian gods aren’t depicted in the exact same way every time. Part of this is because “Ancient Egypt” covers a period of thousands of years across a broad geographic region. Famously, the length of time between the Pyramids and Cleopatra’s reign is longer than between Cleopatra’s reign and today. Anubis, for example, was portrayed as a black canine in the Early Dynastic Period (around 3000 BCE), and as a man with a black jackal head in the Middle Kingdom (around 2000 BCE). Other gods entered or exited popular worship over time, and some gods were…