Re).

Horus appears to have been the great god of united Egypt in the earliest
times about which we have information. The kings of the predynastic and
early dynastic periods are called "worshipers of Horus," a title that
was adopted by succeeding monarchs, who had each his "Horus name."[1247]
He was also the special patron of some small communities--a fact that
has been variously interpreted as indicating that the god's movement was
from local to general patron,[1248] or that it was in the opposite
direction[1249]; the former of these hypotheses is favored by what
appears elsewhere in such changes in the positions of deities. As Horus
is always connected with light he may have been originally a local
sun-god; it is possible, however, that he was a clan god with general
functions, who was brought into association with the sun by the natural
progress of thought. In any case he became a great sun-god, but yielded
his position of eminence to Ra. The myth of his conflict with Set, the
representative of darkness, is probably a priestly dualistic
construction, resting, perhaps, on a political situation (the struggle
between the North and the South of the Egyptian territory).[1250]

+727+. The general development of Ra is plain, though details are
lacking. It may be inferred from his name (which means 'sun') that he
was originally the physical sun. Traces of his early crudeness appear in
the stories of his destruction of mankind, and of the way in which Isis,
by a trick, got from him his true name and, with it, his power.[1251]
With the growth of his native land (Lower Egypt) he became the great
lord of the sun, and finally universal lord;[1252] his supremacy was
doubtless due in part to the political importance of On (Heliopolis),
the seat of his chief shrine. What other circumstances contributed to
his victory over Horus are not recorded; in general it may be supposed
that political changes occasioned the recedence of the latter.

The primacy of Ra is illustrated by the fact that Amon was identified
with him. Amon, originally the local god of Thebes,[1253] became great
in the South as Ra became great in the North, rising with the growth of
the Theban kingdom. His hold on the people, and particularly (as was
natural) on the priests, is shown in a noteworthy way by the episode of
Amenhotep IV's attempt to supplant him by establishing a substantially
monotheistic cult of the sun-god Aton; the attempt was successful only
durin