Set (/sɛt/; Egyptological: Sutekh - swtẖ ~ stẖ[a] or: Seth /sɛθ/) is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion.

Set had a positive role where he accompanied Ra on his barque to repel Apep (Apophis), the serpent of Chaos.

[14][16] In art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast not identified with any known animal, although it could be seen as resembling a Saluki, an aardvark, an African wild dog, a donkey, a hyena, a jackal, a pig, an antelope, a giraffe, or a fennec fox.

The animal has a downward curving snout; long ears with squared-off ends; a thin, forked tail with sprouted fur tufts in an inverted arrow shape; and a slender canine body.

[18] The earliest representations of what might be the Set animal comes from a tomb dating to the Amratian culture ("Naqada I") of prehistoric Egypt (3790–3500 BCE), although this identification is uncertain.

If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set animal appears on a ceremonial macehead of Scorpion II, a ruler of the Naqada III phase.

The contest between them is often violent but is also described as a legal judgment before the Ennead, an assembled group of Egyptian deities, to decide who should inherit the kingship.

[21] Other deities also take important roles: Thoth frequently acts as a conciliator in the dispute[22] or as an assistant to the divine judge, and in "Contendings", Isis uses her cunning and magical power to aid her son.

[24] This incongruity persists in many of the subsequent sources, where the two gods may be called brothers or uncle and nephew at different points in the same text.

"Contendings" describes the two gods appealing to various other deities to arbitrate the dispute and competing in different types of contests, such as racing in boats or fighting each other in the form of hippopotami, to determine a victor.

At one point Isis attempts to harpoon Set as he is locked in combat with her son, but she strikes Horus instead, who then cuts off her head in a fit of rage.

Horus may take back his lost Eye, or other deities, including Isis, Thoth, and Hathor, may retrieve or heal it for him.

During the Second Intermediate Period (1650–1550 BCE), a group of Near Eastern peoples, known as the Hyksos (literally, "rulers of foreign lands") gained control of Lower Egypt, and ruled the Nile Delta, from Avaris.

[citation needed] The founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty, Ramesses I came from a military family from Avaris with strong ties to the priesthood of Set.

[49] According to Herman te Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods.

The Greeks would later associate Set with Typhon and Yahweh, a monstrous and evil force of raging nature (being the three of them depicted as donkey-like creatures, classifying their worshippers as onolatrists).

[citation needed] Ancient Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney shot an episode called "The Birth of the Devil" in the "Out of Egypt" documentary series.

One of the epithets of this town was "gateway to the desert", which fits well with Set's role as a deity of the frontier regions of ancient Egypt.

[56] Papyrus Bologna preserves a most irritable complaint lodged by one Pra'em-hab, Prophet of the "House of Seth" in the now-lost town of Punodjem ("The Sweet Place").

When, by the Twentieth Dynasty, the "demonization" of Seth was ostensibly inaugurated, Seth was either eradicated or increasingly pushed to the outskirts, Nephthys flourished as part of the usual Osirian pantheon throughout Egypt, even obtaining a Late Period status as tutelary goddess of her own Nome (UU Nome VII, "Hwt-Sekhem"/Diospolis Parva) and as the chief goddess of the Mansion of the Sistrum in that district.

[58][59][60][61] Seth's cult persisted even into the latter days of ancient Egyptian religion, in outlying but important places like Kharga, Dakhlah, Deir el-Hagar, Mut, and Kellis.

Kemetism, a modern revival of ancient Egyptian religion, acknowledges Set as a complex deity associated with chaos, storms, and warfare, yet also protector against the serpent Apep.

In the television series Doctor Who, Set (using the name Sutekh and portrayed by Gabriel Woolf) is depicted as an alien entity bent on destroying all life.

He commands powers entwined with manipulation, darkness, and serpentine subtlety, epitomized by his unique Discipline, Serpentis, dedicated to the mastery of serpents.

In the 1992 Nintendo Entertainment System video game Nightshade, the villain's public persona is that of "Sutekh", a criminal underboss who unifies the gangs of the fictitious Metro City.