Etymology
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| ḥr "Horus" in hieroglyphs |
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Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr.w; the pronunciation has been reconstructed as *Ḥāru, meaning "falcon". Additional meanings are thought to have been "the distant one" or "one who is above, over". By Coptic times, the name became Hōr. It was adopted into Greek as Ὧρος Hōros. The original name also survives in later Egyptian names such as Har-si-ese literally "Horus, son of Isis".
Horus was also known as Nekheny, meaning "falcon". Some have proposed that Nekheny may have been another falcon-god, worshipped at Nekhen (city of the hawk), with which Horus was identified from early on. Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette dating from the time of unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Read more about this topic: Horus
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