The specific time of the Contendings is a period during which the fighting has temporarily stopped and Seth and Horus have brought their case before the Ennead.

The beginning of the story is a sort of a trial when both Seth and Horus plead their cases and the deities of the Ennead state their opinions.

In the book, Griffiths discusses the different aspects of the ongoing battle for the office of Osiris, including the mutilations, homosexual episode, and the trial.

Griffiths argues that the myth is of political and historical origin and that the story of Horus and Seth has to do with tribal struggles before the unification of Egypt.

[5] Other historians have discarded this idea when it comes to "The Contendings of Horus and Seth" and say that this particular story was created simply as a religious myth and that it should not be considered of historical context (Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt).