The Contendings

The Egyptian succession dispute survives most fully in one New Kingdom papyrus, a comic source in which Set spends the entire case losing on points. He argues, correctly, that he is the stronger, and that the throne should follow strength. The tribunal wavers for eighty years. He and Horus maim each other, cheat at a boat race, and spend one very strange night together, after which a trick of Isis settles the matter. Horus takes the throne. Set is given the storms, and in some versions a place beside Ra.