Hor-Pa-Khered
/ˌhɔːr pə ˈkɛrɛd/noun
An Egyptological rendering of the ancient Egyptian epithet meaning Horus the Child.
Did you know?The Greek god Harpocrates was not a separate deity but a Greek adaptation of Hor-pa-khered, the child form of Horus, whose finger-to-the-lips gesture was later misread as a command for silence.
Etymological Timeline
New Kingdom, c. 1550–1070 BCE
Egyptian
Ḥr-pꜣ-ẖrd
“Horus the Child; the youthful form of the falcon-headed god Horus”
Late Period, c. 664–332 BCE
Egyptian
Ḥr-pꜣ-ẖrd
“A protective child deity associated with Isis and the renewal of kingship”
Hellenistic Period, 4th–1st Century BCE
Greek
Ἁρποκράτης (Harpokrátēs)
“Greek rendering of Hor-pa-khered”
Roman Period, 1st Century BCE–4th Century CE
Latin
Harpocrates
“The Egyptian child-god adopted into Greco-Roman religious tradition”
Modern Egyptology, 19th–21st Century
Egyptological English
Hor-pa-khered
“Scholarly transliteration of the Egyptian epithet Ḥr-pꜣ-ẖrd”