Seth / Set and the mystery of the Sha
Setesh, Sutekh, Setekh, Suty...
Lord of the red desert sands,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(deity)
father of Anubis, the god of generals, protector of foreigners,
King maker, god slayer, and above all the vanquisher of Chaos and darkness
An earlier deity popular among the Libyans was Ash, who bore a striking resemblance to Set,
and yet was also depicted as a lion, vulture, hawk or even a snake...
Later, Set would be associated with other foreign gods such as
the Canaanite Ba'al, the Hurrian Teshub and the Greek Typhon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_(deity)
The "Set animal", or sha, proves a mystery to this day,
some speculated a donkey, pig or canine. Its interesting to note that Seth
being the father of Anubis, still bears less resemblance to either
Jackal or hound portrayals in ancient Egyptian artwork.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_animal
Seth as a donkey, Leyden Coptic papyrus, Roman era, 4th century
However it has be suggested that the bushy tail ends, may
resemble that of African Wild dogs instead (
Lycaon pictus),
which held great importance in earlier pre-dynastic periods ...
among the animals associated with Set where swine, donkeys other hoofed mammals.
The elongated snout itself does looks like that of a pig, warthog or wild boar...
The most common and prevalent theory by far, is that of the aardvark,
that rare creature roaming the distant plains of foreign lands...
Others however, still consider the Sha to be a mythical chimera,
or imaginary creature, owing to its bizarre features and gait...
Seth himself can transform into a variety of other animals,
such as a bull, crocodile or Hippopotamus...
ironically interesting to note are the Medjed or Oxyrhynchus fish
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed_(fish)
which are said to have devoured Osiris's "male member", after being killed by Set,
who then had the cadaver dismembered and scattered to the wind!
They are based on locally caught Elephant-snout fish,
(
Mormyrus kannume &
Mormyrus caschive)...
Gathered Ancient Images of Set
http://www.joanlansberry.com/setfind/setfind.html
Seth - A misrepresented God from the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon?
https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:180305&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF