Sails the sky by day and the underworld by night, reborn each dawn
The day barque Mandjet and the night barque Mesektet carry him through the twelve hours of each.
Myth · Egyptian
Ra
Egyptian mythology — solar creator god
The sun god of Heliopolis and, for most of Egyptian history, the king of the gods. He crosses the sky each day in a boat and passes through the underworld each night, where the serpent Apophis waits to swallow him; every sunrise is a victory. Pharaohs called themselves his sons, and in the New Kingdom he fused with Amun of Thebes into the supreme Amun-Ra.
How to spot them
- ▸A falcon-headed man crowned with a sun disc encircled by a rearing cobra
- ▸Travels by boat — a day barque across the sky, a night barque through the Duat
- ▸Chief god of Heliopolis, head of its Ennead of nine gods
- ▸Quiz clue: 'solar barque', 'Apophis', 'Heliopolis', 'the scarab at dawn, the ram-head at dusk'
Stories & episodes
Every night a giant serpent tries to swallow him and every morning it fails
Apophis (Apep) is speared in the depths of the Duat so the sun can rise.
Bitten by a serpent Isis had made from his own spittle, he was forced to give up his secret name
The cure cost him the hidden name that carried his power, which passed to her and to Horus.
He sent his Eye as a lioness to slaughter rebellious humanity, then stopped her with beer dyed red
Sekhmet drank the flooded fields thinking it blood, fell asleep, and mankind survived.
Merged with the Theban god Amun to become the supreme deity of the New Kingdom
Syncretism also produced Ra-Horakhty and Khnum-Ra.
Pharaohs from the Fourth Dynasty on took a throne title declaring themselves the sun god's son
The 'Sa-Ra' name is written in the second cartouche.
The Greeks identified him with Helios, and Heliopolis is named for that equation
Its Egyptian name was Iunu, the biblical On.
Quick-fire facts
- •His cult centre was Heliopolis (Egyptian Iunu, biblical On), north-east of modern Cairo
- •He heads the Ennead of Heliopolis and is the father of Shu and Tefnut
- •He is shown as the scarab Khepri at sunrise, the disc at noon, and the ram-headed Atum at sunset
- •His day boat is the Mandjet and his night boat the Mesektet
- •The Litany of Ra and the Book of Gates describe the nightly journey through the Duat
- •Obelisks and the benben stone were solar emblems of his cult
- •Akhenaten's Aten was a rival solar form — the visible disc worshipped alone
- •Amun-Ra, the fusion with Thebes' god, dominated the New Kingdom state religion at Karnak
- •Many royal names contain his: Ramesses means 'Ra has fashioned him'
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Richard H. Wilkinson — The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
- Geraldine Pinch — Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt