Horus and Set with Ramesses the Third seen at the Global Egyptian Museum website, housed in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Granite, height 195cm, width 72cm, originally found at Medinet Habu

© Ma'at Production. Used with permission


I found an exquisite close up of this Set, taken by 'Tutincommon'. Should the photographer's website be unavailable, I've saved full size here.

The text at the Global Museum explains: "Each god has placed one hand on the crown of the king, performing the Coronation of Ramesses the Third.". This is likely the 'accession' referred to in _Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts_ by Jeremy Naydler. Merriam-Webster defines 'accession' as "the act of coming to high office or a position of honor or power <her accession to power>"


Unas stands between Horus and Seth during a kingship rite. Reconstruction from relief fragments found at his pyramid temple at Saqqara

Unas has tied the cords of the shem-shem plant,
Unas has united the heavens,
Unas rules over the lands, the South and the North.
as the gods of long ago.
Unas has built a divine city as it should be,
Unas is the third at his accession.

Naydler explains:
"In a possible reference to a baptismal ceremony associated with his accession, the king is described as 'the third at his accession.' As a third, he would be between Horus and Seth (or Horus and Thoth), who would be standing on either side of him and would pour baptismal water over him. The position of the king between the dual gods, receiving blessings from both, symbolizes his union of their opposing natures within himself."(pages 305-306)

The baptismal water he refers to shows in a much later relief "Horus and Thoth purifying Ptolemy XIII at the temple of Kom Ombo". In both Unas and Ramses III, the deities have their hands at the pharoah's crown.

I wondered at this change to Horus and Thoth, rather than Horus and Set, and thought it was due to changing attitudes towards Set. But Wilkinson shows this is not so, for even when Set is not shown, he is still understood to be there:

Giving examples of when 'two' actually represents 'four', "in a classic study of the royal purification ritual, Sir Alan Gardiner showed that the two gods usually depicted performing the act of lustration - Horus and Thoth (ill. 124) - actually represented the four gods of the cardinal points Horus, Seth, Thoth, and Anti who transferred to the king a portion of their power as the divinities of the four quarters of the world. Private representations of funerary purifications (which were symbolically parallel) actually show four priests performing the rite, but the royal depictions of this ritual almost always depict only two of the deities, perhaps for purposes of symmetry and representional balance. Whatever the reason, once again we see two representing four and thereby carrying the connotation of the extended number, though the use of the two deities Horus and Thoth (paralleling the common use of Horus and Seth) may also have connoted the dualism of Upper and Lower Egypt." (from _Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art_, by Richard H. Wilkinson, page 139)

However, it does seem in the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom, it is Set and Horus that are more often depicted. TeVelde shows Seti I being purified thusly by Set and Horus:


"Pharoa Sethos I being purified by Set and Horus"
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 36 (1950), pl. 2.

Peter Brand makes reference to this piece in his "Monuments of Seti I". He cites a JEA 36 (1950), plate 1, rather than plate 2, which is probably the full lintel view:


Heliopolis, Lintel of Seti I, black granodiorite (Former Brussels E. 407)
"This beautiful lintel of Seti I was unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1946..."

 Seti I has another relief of himself being blessed by Set and Horus, this one at the large Karnak temple:


From Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien by Lepsius
(This is available in printable line drawing pdf)


Arja Kontkanen, who visited Karnak in April 2009, has a large view of which the photo above is a detail of Set

Here's another image which appears to be a further development of the theme of Set and Horus giving support to the king, in this instance at his Heb Sed festival:


Slightly enlarged from its source at touregypt.net
"Kairoinfo4u" gives a larger view of this, which I have saved as well. It appears to have been found in a German text.
Tutincommon photographed part of this piece , I've saved the large size here, here is a cropped detail:


The 'touregypt' writer describes it as "A Papyrus commemorating Senusret III's Sed-festival". Although they gave no proper attribution, Tutincommon reveals he took his photo in the Cairo museum. Also, I've never seen papyrus that looked like stone!

But they did get the pharoah identified right:


(Basically, the Heb Sed was a festival to show the king's strength, held every thirty years to show he still had the right 'stuff' to rule). With a little search, I found several references to this piece in Wilkingson's _Reading Egyptian Art_. He features a nice clear delineation of that Set figure:


"Seth standard, on lintel of Sesostris III from Naq el-Madamud. Twelfth Dynasty."
Note, too, the 'gold town' "Nubt" hieroglyphs, since he is associated with Nubt, aka Naqada

A look in the back of the book reveals this piece is at the Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 6189. The Art Dictionary defines "lintel - In architecture, a horizontal beam of any material spanning an opening, usually between two walls or posts." Another lintel of Sesostris III (aka Senusret III, Senwosret III, Senusert III) is at the Louvre.

Wilkinson also gives two other nice linear clarifications of the Heb-Sed lintel:


"Heron standard, on lintel of Sesostris III from Naq el-Madamud. Twelfth Dynasty."


"Palm branches presented to the king..."
(a few hieroglyphs have been omitted...)

The palm hieroglyph repeats through the piece as a visually unifying element. "A branch of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), stripped of its leaves and notched annually, appears to have been used as the standard method of recording years in ancient Egypt from the most distant times." "...the palm branch hieroglyph was used in such words as renpet: 'year' and ter: 'time' or 'season,' from Old Kingdom times."_Reading Egyptian Art_, page 119

Here is a linear drawing of Amenemhat's lintel from his pyramid temple at el-Lisht:


Again, the pharoah is at his sed festival and the palms are being presented
_Temples of Ancient Egypt_, by Byron E. Shafer, Dieter Arnold, page 77
(Closer view of Set available
See printable pdf of this.

Merenptah has a Heb-Sed festival lintel as well:


Lintel of Temple of Merenptah, Memphis
_THE PALACE OF APRIES(MEMPHIS II)_, by W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
http://www.etana.org/coretexts/15282.pdf
Sed-heb festival:
Above Horus the inscription reads "He of Behudet (Edfu), the great god presiding over the shrine of the North."
Above Set is "He of Nubt (Ombos) the great god, presiding over the shrine of the South."
See printable pdf of this.

I noted in the Erman book from which Wilkinson and Naydler got the image of Set teaching Thutmosis III that Erman gave credit to a Lepsius. I tracked Karl Richard Lepsius and his book Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien,where I found the original drawing of that (plus several other Set sightings)!

One of them is of 18th dynasty's last pharoah being blessed by Set and Horus:


Felsengrotte von Abahuda = Rock Grotto from Abahuda


Prenomen: Djeserkheperure Setepenre,  Nomen: Horemheb, (about 1319-1292 BC)

Horemheb's birth name and epithet was Horemheb Meryamun, meaning "Horus is in Jubilation, Beloved of Amun". Believed to be a commoner, he rose to power under Tutankhamun, and "With energy and dedication, he sought to return the cult of Amun to its pre-Akhenaten glory, and to reverse the corruption and power imbalances brought about by Akhenaten’s over centralization of powers." -Virtual-Egyptian museum.

Horemheb played an interesting role in Egypt's history. Not only did he do much to clean up the mess Akhenaten had made, he initiated the nineteenth dynasty when he appointed Paramessu to be prince regent and vizier who then assumed the throne as Ramesses I when Horemheb died.

"The role assigned to Paramessu once more reveals Horemheb's preoccupation with the military situation in Egypt's northern terrorities. Paramessu's family came from Avaris, the former capitol of the Hyksos, and the role of its local god Seth, who had retained strong connections with that of Horus of Hutnesu in Horemheb's career. In the light of this it is interesting to observe that Horemheb built a temple for Seth at Avaris. The Ramessid royal family considered the god Seth to be their royal ancestor, and a fragment of an obelisk (originally from Heliopolis), recently discovered on the seabed off the coast of Alexandria, shows Sety I as a sphinx with the head of the Seth-animal offering to Ra-Atum." (_The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt_, edited by Ian Shaw, page 294)

Set and Horus, called "The Two Lords", protect the pharoah, along with "The Two Ladies". Geraldine Pinch shares an example of this:


"Figure 46. A king protected by the Two Ladies (Wadjyt and Nekhbet) and the Two Lords (Seth and Horus.
Line drawing of a late New Kingdom relief in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak. (Art Resource),_Handbook of Egyptian mythology_, page 212


From _Luxor and Its Temples_ by Aylward M. Blackman and Benton Fletcher, originally published in 1923
The authors give credit to a 'Wilkinson' for the image.
(But after looking at Wilkinson's woodcuts (via Google book search), I suspect Lepsius is really the source.)

Also see the relief of Rameses II being blessed by Set and Horus.