Eye of Horus
The eye of the god Horus, called the uzat or utchat: one of the commonest amulets of ancient Egypt.
Meaning
Egyptians made the eye into amulets of gold, silver, stone, glazed ware and wood, and Wallis Budge judged its use to have been universal at all periods. The eyes came as a pair, one facing left and one facing right, for the two eyes of Horus, and they were also compared to the sun and the moon. The 140th chapter of the Book of the Dead calls the sun the eye, and was to be said over an eye of lapis lazuli ornamented with gold.
Origin and history
Flinders Petrie, cataloguing the amulets at University College London in 1914, counted the eye of Horus among the earliest Egyptian amulets.
See also
Scarab, Djed pillar, Was sceptre, Shen ring, Cartouche, Tyet.
Sources
- Amulets, illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College, London, W. M. Flinders Petrie, 1914, Constable and Company, London (Internet Archive), No. 138
- Egyptian Magic, E. A. Wallis Budge, 1901, Internet Archive (Getty Research Institute copy), Amulet 12
Last reviewed September 25, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research