Egyptian Pantheontool
Was Scepter
- Dominion
- Chaos Control
- Royal Authority
- Divine Power
The scepter of power and dominion, featuring a forked base and an animal head. It represents control over the forces of chaos and the authority of divine and royal power.
About Was Scepter
Forked staff of was
The was-scepter — animal head, forked foot — is in the hands of gods on temple walls from the Early Dynastic period. It writes power (was). Set is an early bearer, desert and storm in his brief; Amun, Ra, and others take it up. There is no forging epic. Faience votives copy the shape. It is a standard, a hieroglyph, and a divine attribute, not a unique weapon in the Osiris murder-cycle. Dominion over chaos is the meaning of the sign, not a surviving royal staff we can chain of custody.
Origin
Associated with Set's control over the desert and chaos, later adopted as a universal symbol of divine authority.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Egyptian temple iconography
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
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