During the last few days I’ve been searching for an Egyptian God associated with horses. I needed a name and some information about this Egyptian God to use in dialogue for book 3 of my ‘Daughters of the Wind’ series. I found the very interesting Egyptian God Resheph… Perfect for what I wanted. I thought he was interesting enough to share with everyone.
Egyptian Gods: Resheph
Resheph was a God of War and Thunder, originally Syrian. He was worshipped in Egypt from 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. His name Resheph also is spelt several different ways means ‘lighting’ or ‘flames’ in Classical Hebrew.

His appearance is portrayed as man wearing White Crown of Upper Egypt with a gazelle head in front and long ribbons steamed from back of the crown. He holds spear, axe, sickle, scepter or the ankh in hand. Sometimes, he depicted as a man with a Syrian style beard. He also often showed together with Qetesh and Min.

Resheph is the husband of Qadesh, the Semitic goddess of nature (from Syria) and father of Min, the god of fertility. He was also often considered as the husband of Itum in relation of his ability or power to control diseases.

Resheph become very popular under Amenhotep II during 18th dynasty, where he served as god of horses and the protector of royalty. However, his force for destruction of royal enemies in battle, extended beyond the royal circles by his power to cure the ordinary people disease. He was thought to be able to repel the ‘akha’ demon which causes abdominal pains. He also became the approachable deity who can grant success to those praying to him.

Resheph was closely associated with the native Egyptian war god, Monthu and with many other deities. He was also known as “Lord of Sky”, “Lord of Eternity”, “Lord of Heaven” or “Governor of all the Gods” and an area of the Nile valley was renamed the “Valley of Reshep”.

Adapted from www.egyptian-gods.org