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50 free Horus trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Horus trivia quiz covers one of ancient Egypt's most important gods, the falcon-headed lord of the sky and kingship whom every living pharaoh was believed to embody. The easy questions handle the basics: the bird he took the form of, his mother and father, the uncle who murdered Osiris, the famous protective eye symbol and the Greek god the Egyptians equated him with. From there it moves through the myths themselves: Isis hiding in the Delta marshes, the eighty-year contest with Set, the lettuce trick, the boat race won with a boat of painted wood, and the eye that Set tore out and Thoth or Hathor healed. The harder half is for lovers of Egyptology: the many forms of Horus from Heru-ur to Harpocrates, the Horus name and the serekh that predates the cartouche, Nekhen and the Narmer Palette, the winged sun of Edfu, the Festival of Victory with its harpooned hippo, the Chester Beatty papyrus, the four sons and their canopic jars, Hathor's 'House of Horus' name and Ra-Horakhty. If you enjoyed our Egyptian mythology or ancient Egypt quizzes, this is the deep dive on the falcon. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Horus, the Eye of Horus, Set, Isis, Edfu and the related deities and artefacts before publishing.
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Q 01Egyptologists think the bird depicted as Horus was most likely a peregrine or which other species?
A lanner
His name in hieroglyphs simply means 'Falcon', and he was shown either as the bird itself or as a man with its head.
Q 02In the most common tradition, Horus is the son of which divine couple?
Isis and Osiris
He plays the key role in the great myth as his father's heir and the rival of the uncle who murdered him.
Q 03Which god murdered Horus's father and fought his nephew for the throne of Egypt?
Set
He was the god of deserts, storms and disorder, usually shown as a mysterious beast that no one has identified.
Q 04According to Egyptian belief, Horus's right eye was the sun. What was his left eye?
The moon
They were said to cross the sky as he flew over it in falcon form.
Q 05What was the ancient Egyptian word for the Eye of Horus symbol?
Wedjat
From the New Kingdom the term meant the 'whole' or 'uninjured' eye, and it was one of the most common amulet designs of all.
Q 06Which Greek god did the Egyptians equate with Horus, according to Claudius Aelianus?
Apollo
Plutarch specified that the equivalent was really 'Horus the Elder', a primordial form distinct from the child god.
Q 07The earliest recorded form of Horus was the tutelary deity of which Upper Egyptian city, later called Hierakonpolis by the Greeks?
Nekhen
The Greek name means 'City of Falcons', and the Narmer Palette was found there.
Q 08Which ancient funerary writings of about 2400 to 2300 BC first describe the pharaoh as Horus in life and Osiris in death?
The Pyramid Texts
Each new pharaoh was seen as a fresh incarnation of Horus succeeding the dead king on earth.
Q 09Where did the pregnant Isis flee to hide from Set before giving birth to Horus?
The Nile Delta marshlands
She had to protect the growing child from Set, snakes, scorpions and ordinary illness.
Q 10In one tale, which part of Horus's dismembered father was never recovered because a fish had eaten it?
His penis
Isis fashioned a replacement by magic to conceive her son; older Egyptian versions have the organ survive.
Q 11In the struggle between the two rival gods, Horus lost an eye. What did his opponent lose?
A testicle
The tale of The Contendings of Horus and Seth was used to explain why the moon is dimmer than the sun.
Q 12In The Contendings, Horus (or Isis) spread his semen on which food, Set's favourite, to trick him?
Lettuce
When the gods called each rival's semen forth, Set's answered from the river and Horus's from inside Set.
Q 13How did Horus win the vessel race that finally decided the contest with Set?
His boat was wood painted to look like stone
Q 21The Eye of Horus is mentioned in roughly what share of the utterances in Egypt's oldest funerary writings, carved in late Old Kingdom pyramids?
About a quarter
In those texts Set steals the eye, sometimes tramples and eats it, and Horus takes it back by force.
Q 22Where did Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors often paint the Eye of Horus?
On the bows of their boats
Seven bracelets on the mummy of Shoshenq II also carry the eye as their central element, to protect the king in the afterlife.
Q 23What was the Greek name for Horus the Child, Heru-pa-khered?
Harpocrates
Greeks and Romans mistook his finger-to-mouth pose, an Egyptian sign of childhood, for a gesture of silence and made him god of secrets.
Set's boat, made of real stone, sank; the gods had grown tired of more than eighty years of fighting.
Q 14For roughly how long had the gods endured the fighting between Horus and Set before the boat race?
Over eighty years
After his defeat Set stepped down and officially handed Horus the throne.
Q 15In the Memphite Theology, which god first divides the realm between Horus and Set and then reverses himself, giving it all to Horus?
Geb
That peaceable version reconciles the two and resolves the dualities they represent into a united whole.
Q 16Which Dublin-held 20th Dynasty manuscript preserves The Contendings of Horus and Seth?
Chester Beatty Papyrus I
It dates to the reign of Ramesses V and probably came from a scribe's private collection, alongside love songs.
Q 17Which god is most often credited with healing or restoring the eye that Set destroyed?
Thoth
Horus then offered the healed eye to his dead father, and its power sustained him in the afterlife.
Q 18In one account, Hathor filled Horus's empty eye sockets with the milk of which animal?
A gazelle
Later temple texts have Thoth and fourteen other gods fill the eye, standing for the fifteen days from new moon to full.
Q 19The waxing and waning of which heavenly body was likened to the injury and restoration of the Eye of Horus?
The moon
Egyptologist Rolf Krauss has argued the eye originally stood for Venus as morning and evening star.
Q 20Egyptologists long believed hieroglyphs for pieces of the Eye of Horus stood for what in Egyptian mathematics?
Fractions
That hypothesis has since been challenged.
Q 24How is Horus the Child typically portrayed?
As a naked boy with a finger to his mouth
He also wears the sidelock of youth and often the united crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Q 25Which form of the god, worshipped at Letopolis, did the Greeks call Haroeris?
The Elder (Heru-ur)
He was sometimes shown as a hieracosphinx, a falcon-headed lion, and titled 'foremost of the two eyes'.
Q 26Which famous monument was believed to have been inspired by Har-em-akhet, 'Horus in the Horizon'?
The Great Sphinx of Giza
That form of Horus stood for the dawn and was often shown as a sphinx with a human head, or a lion with a falcon's head.
Q 27The winged sun found atop temple pylons throughout Egypt was the symbol of Horus of which town?
Edfu
That form of the god was Heru-Behdeti, and the winged disc stood for divinity, royalty and power.
Q 28The Temple of Horus at Edfu, one of Egypt's best preserved, was built by which dynasty between 237 and 57 BC?
The Ptolemies
Work began under Ptolemy III Euergetes on 23 August 237 BC and finished under Ptolemy XII Auletes.
Q 29To what depth had the Temple of Edfu been buried in sand and Nile silt by the time Europeans saw it in 1798?
12 metres
Locals had built houses on top of it, and only the tops of the pylons showed.
Q 30By what Latin name was the city of Edfu known, after Horus's identification with a Greek god?
Apollonopolis Magna
Its temple walls preserve scenes of the sacred drama of the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth.