Ash

Ash was usually depicted as a human, whose head was one of the desert creatures, variously being shown as a lion, vulture, hawk, snake, or the unidentified Set animal. In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal, or sha, is the totemic animal of the god Set. Because Set was identified with the Greek monster Typhon, the animal is also commonly known as the Typhonian animal or Typhonic beast.

Unlike other totemic animals, the Set animal is not easily identifiable in the modern animal world. Today, there is a general agreement among Egyptologists that it was never a real creature and existed only in ancient Egyptian imagination. In recent years, there have been many attempts by zoologists to find the Set animal in nature. Whether or not the animal existed is currently unknown, yet it had much significance for the Egyptians

Ash was the ancient Egyptian god of oases, as well as the vineyards of the western Nile Delta and thus was viewed as a benign deity. Flinders Petrie in his 1923 expedition to the Saqqara (also spelt Sakkara) found several references to Ash in Old Kingdom wine jar seals: "I am refreshed by this Ash" was a common inscription.