Ra

• 1. Introduction

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  Ra was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun, and the Egyptians called themselves the "Cattle of Ra." The name fit a strange origin story. In some accounts, humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Ra had become one of the most important gods in Egyptian religion, tied above all to the noon-day Sun. He ruled the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was believed to have reigned as the first pharaoh of Egypt. How did a god of the midday Sun come to be worshipped as a king, a creator, and the father of nearly every other deity? Why did pharaohs spend so much of Egypt's money raising temples to him? And what happened every single night, in the dark beneath the world, that the living had to help him survive?

• 2. The Nightly Voyage

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  When Ra became too old and weary to reign on Earth, Egyptian myth says he relinquished his rule and went to the skies. From then on his duty was to carry the Sun across the sky on his solar barque to light the day. He traveled in his falcon-headed form on the Mandjet Barque through the hours of daylight. The Mandjet was also called the Boat of Millions of Years. When the sun set and twilight came, Ra and his vessel passed through the akhet, the horizon, in the west. The horizon has sometimes been described as a gate or door leading to the Duat. There he switched to the Mesektet Barque in his ram-headed form to descend into the underworld for the hours of night. On the subterrestrial Nile he crossed through twelve gates and regions, twelve hours of night that were also the literal underworld of Egypt. Every night the serpent Apophis attacked, trying to stop the sun-boat's journey. After defeating the snake, Ra would leave the underworld and return at dawn, lighting the day once again. Ra never traveled alone in the dark. Among his companions were Sia, who was perception, and Hu, who was command, along with Heka, the power of magic.

• 3. The God Of Chaos

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  Apophis, also called Apep, was the god of chaos, the force the Egyptians named isfet. He was an enormous serpent who tried to stop the sun-boat's journey every night, either by consuming it or by halting it with a hypnotic stare. He was said to lie just below the horizon line, waiting to devour Ra as the god passed through the underworld. Ra was not always the one who fought him off. Members of the Ennead sometimes helped on the journey, including Set, who overcame the serpent, and Mehen, who defended against the monsters of the underworld. Bastet, known as the "cat of Ra," was famed for decapitating Apophis to protect the sun god. Many acts of worship were aimed straight at this contest. Hymns, prayers, and spells were composed to help Ra and the sun-boat overcome Apophis, turning the nightly battle into something the living could join.

• 4. Creator In The Waters

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  At the beginning of time, when there was nothing but chaos, the sun-god existed alone in the watery mass of Nun that filled the universe. From that primal flood the Benben, a pyramid mound, emerged. A lotus flower grew with the Benben, and when it blossomed, Ra emerged from it. One ancient line captures the moment: "I am Atum when he was alone in Nun, I am Ra when he dawned, when he began to rule that which he had made." Ra created Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. The two siblings symbolized two universal principles of humans, life and right, meaning justice. Ra was believed to have called all forms of life into existence by uttering their secret names. The Sun's life-giving qualities anchored this role. The Sun controlled the ripening of the crops worked by man, and so Ra represented life, warmth, and growth. That power explains a striking belief Egyptians held: that they were Ra's own creatures, made from his tears and sweat.

• 5. Many Heads, Many Forms

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  Ra was portrayed as a man with the head of most likely either a lanner or peregrine falcon, adorned with a sun disk circled by a cobra. The cobra, in many myths, represented the Eye of Ra. This falcon head came from his combination with Horus, another sky-god. The two were sometimes merged as Ra-Horakhty, "Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons." His appearance shifted with the hours and the myths. He could appear as a man with the head of a beetle in his form as Khepri, or with the head of a ram. He was also pictured as a full-bodied ram, beetle, phoenix, heron, serpent, bull, cat, or lion, among others. In the underworld he most commonly took the ram's head, described there as the "ram of the west" or "ram in charge of his harem." Some literature gives him a body of precious materials. There Ra is an aging king with golden flesh, silver bones, and hair of lapis lazuli.

• 6. City Of The Sun

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  The chief cultic center of Ra was Iunu, "the Place of Pillars," later known to the Ptolemaic Kingdom as Heliopolis, "Sun City," and today located in the suburbs of Cairo. There he was identified with the local sun god Atum, and as Atum-Ra he was reckoned the first being and the originator of the Ennead, "The Nine." Ra's local cult began to grow from roughly the Second Dynasty. By the Fourth Dynasty, pharaohs were seen as Ra's manifestations on Earth, called "Sons of Ra." His worship increased massively in the Fifth Dynasty, when Ra became a state-deity. Pharaohs had specially aligned pyramids, obelisks, and sun temples built in his honor, and they spent much of Egypt's money on these sun-temples. The rulers of the Fifth Dynasty told their followers they were sons of Ra himself and of the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis. The Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its cult centered at Heliopolis, with a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city. The first Pyramid Texts began to arise in this era, giving Ra ever more significance in the pharaoh's journey through the Duat.

• 7. The Eye And Its Daughters

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  Sekhmet was a daughter of Ra, depicted as a lioness or large cat and known as an "eye of Ra," an instrument of the sun god's vengeance. In one myth, Ra feared humankind was plotting against him and sent Hathor, another daughter, to punish humanity. While slaughtering humans she took the form of Sekhmet. To stop her from killing everyone, Ra ordered beer dyed red and poured out on the land. Mistaking it for blood, Sekhmet drank, grew intoxicated, and reverted to her pacified form, Hathor. Hathor's bond with Ra ran deeper than punishment. In one myth she danced naked before Ra until he laughed, curing him of a fit of sulking, and when he was without her he fell into deep depression. In the New Kingdom, Ra took the epithet "Kamutef," or "Bull of his mother," alongside Amun. As Kamutef he was seen as the son and husband of Hathor, impregnating his own mother to give birth to himself. Not every story flattered him. Isis once created a serpent to poison Ra, and gave him the antidote only when he revealed his true name to her, a name she then passed to Horus to strengthen his royal authority.

• 8. Fused And Fading

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  Amun was a member of the Ogdoad who was believed to create via breath, identified with the wind rather than the Sun. As the cults of Amun and Ra grew popular in Upper and Lower Egypt, they were combined into Amun-Ra, a solar creator god. References to Amun-Ra appear in pyramid texts as early as the Fifth Dynasty. The most common view is that Amun-Ra was invented as a new state-deity by the Theban rulers of the New Kingdom, around the 18th Dynasty, to unite worshippers of Amun with the older cult of Ra. Worshippers gave Amun-Ra the official title "King of the Gods." Other fusions multiplied. Khepri, the scarab who rolled up the Sun, became the morning manifestation of Ra, while the ram-headed Khnum became the evening one, leaving Ra to represent midday. Montu, a very ancient god, appeared as Montu-Ra, the scorching effect of the sun. Ra-Horakhty was proclaimed king of the gods in the tomb of Horemheb. One offshoot turned against him: the Aten, the disc of the sun, was originally an aspect of Ra before it became the focus of Atenism under the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. The long worship of Ra finally ended with the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.