More kites Dennis?
You wrote
> 3. Phaeton, perhaps from Egyptian /p3 'tn/, (Aten/Aton), the solar
disc, an
> aspect of Ra or Horus, or even /p3 tm/, the evening sun.
> Phaeton, as the son of Helios, could perhaps also be seen as Horus,
> grandson of Ra by Osiris, who is reputed in Egyptian myth as having
tried to
> take the place of Ra.
Hmmm... News to me. Horus as Ra was known as Ra-Herakhte. It was
not
a case of Horus usurpting the place of Ra, but rather that the Falcon
people of Hr syncretising the sun with the flying peregrine falcon.
>His major myth is also of his battle with the
serpent
> Apep/Typhon/Set.
Set was never shown iconographically as a serpent. Rather he was a
strange being with long square ears and a droppy snout. Apopi (Greek
Apophis) was the serpent who swallowed the sun at nights. It was not
Horus who battled with him but Ptah (of the Memphite theogony).
Typhon was not Egytpian, but rather Greek.
>Apep is also the serpent who tries to prevent the
passage
> of Ra through the underworld at night.
I thought it was Apep (Apopi) who in fact swallowed the sun at the
Western horizin at night and disgorged him in the morning at the
eastern horizon.
Are we working from the same myths here?
And slaying primeval serpents is not just Egyptian. There is Lawtan,
slain by Baal, Leviathan killed by Yahweh, and Taimat killed by
Marduk
(earlier by Enlil). It seems to have marked the transition to
patriarchy throughout late neolithic cultures of the Middle East and
the Mediterranean. It is related to the serpent and the seed post I
did.
Regards
John