The Sun God

  Ra was once considered the most important of all the Egyptian gods, and was the personification of the noon sun.  According to Heliopolitan history, Ra created himself from an egg that arose from the priveval waters of Nun, or out of a primordial lotus flower.  He then created Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture).  These two then gave birth to Geb (the Earth God) and Nut (the Sky Goddess).  Ra is said to have created the human race from his own tears and the gods Hu and Sia were born from blood drawn from his own genitals.

  The sun itself was taken to be his body or his eye, also known as “the Eye of Ra.” The center of Ra’s cult from the very beginning was in Heliopolis, where he was also worshiped in the forms of Atum (the setting sun),  Khepri (the rising sun), as well as Ra-Harachte (the morning sun). Ra was often combined with other deities to enhance his prestige, and was famously worshipped as Amun-Ra.

  It’s said that Ra traveled each day in his solar barque through the sky, starting in the morning.  At night, Ra traveled in a different barque through the underworld.  Each night, the monster Apep would try to devour Ra, in order to prevent the sun from emerging again; an eternal battle between light and dark.

  Ra is also the god of the pharaohs and since the fourth dynasty the Egyptian kings styled themselves 'sons of Ra'. After death, the monarch was said to ascend into the sky to join the entourage of Ra.

  In Heliopolis the Benu or Phoenix (sacred heron) and the oracular Mnevis (bull) were venerated as manifestations of the sun-god. Here the kings also built temples for Re, which were important institutions in the field of ideology. Re was usually portrayed as a man with the head of a falcon, crowned with the sun disc encircled by the uraeus.

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