Who is Ra? Guide to the Egyptian Sun God
Ra is the sun. He is not a god who governs the sun. He is the sun itself, personified, sailing his solar boat across the sky by day and descending each night into the underworld to fight the serpent Apep so that he can rise again the next morning. For most of Egyptian history he was the king of the gods, the creator, and the pattern on which pharaohs modeled themselves. When he grew old, he was tricked out of his power by the goddess Isis. When he grew tired of humans, he nearly destroyed them. He is the Egyptian pantheon’s most powerful figure, and its most exhausted.
Key Takeaways
- Ra is the Egyptian sun god, the creator, and, for most of Egyptian history, the king of the gods.
- He is depicted as a man with a falcon’s head, crowned with the sun disk and a coiled cobra (the uraeus).
- His name in Egyptian is Ra or Re; he is closely associated and often merged with other deities as Ra-Horakhty, Ra-Atum, and Amun-Ra.
- He sails across the sky each day in his solar boat (the Mandjet), then descends into the underworld each night in a different boat (the Mesektet) to battle the chaos-serpent Apep.
- He created humanity from his own tears, and later nearly destroyed humanity by sending the goddess Sekhmet to punish them for rebellion.
- The goddess Isis extracted his secret name through cunning, gaining magical power over him and becoming the most powerful magician in the pantheon.
- His cult centre was Heliopolis (the Greek name for the Egyptian city Iunu), where he was worshipped as head of the Ennead, the group of nine primal gods descended from him.
Who is Ra?
Ra is the Egyptian sun god and the creator of the world in the tradition that centered on the city of Heliopolis. He is the source of light, warmth, and life. In his most common depictions he is a man with a falcon’s head, wearing the disk of the sun on his crown, with the coiled body of a cobra (the uraeus) rising in front of it.
Definition - Ra
The Egyptian sun god, creator, and king of the gods. Ra sails across the sky in his solar boat by day and battles the serpent Apep in the underworld by night. His name means “sun.” He is depicted with a falcon’s head crowned with the sun disk. His Roman equivalent, though the identification is loose, is Sol or Helios.
His name is the Egyptian word for the sun itself. Where other gods governed spheres of activity, Ra was the phenomenon. When the Egyptians looked up at midday and squinted, they were looking at the god.
He is closely associated with other deities and appears in various fused forms. Ra-Horakhty combines him with Horus of the Two Horizons, emphasising the sunrise and sunset. Ra-Atum combines him with the creator god Atum, emphasising his role as the source of all being. Amun-Ra combines him with the hidden god Amun of Thebes and represents the theological centre of Egyptian religion for much of the New Kingdom.
Ra as creator
In the Heliopolitan tradition, the creation of the world begins with Ra emerging from the primordial waters of chaos, called Nu (or Nun). Nothing existed before this. Ra rose on a mound of earth - the benben - and from this first solid ground he began to bring the world into being.
He created himself. Then he produced Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture) by spitting them out (or, in some tellings, by masturbation). Shu and Tefnut produced Geb (earth) and Nut (sky), who in turn produced the five children of the epagomenal days - Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder. The Ennead of Heliopolis, the nine primary gods of the Egyptian pantheon, all descend from Ra. Read the creation of the world by Atum, a variant in which the creator role is given to the closely-associated Atum.
Humanity, in one version, was made from Ra’s tears. Ra wept, and where his tears fell, humans grew. The Egyptian word for “humans” (rmt) and the word for “tears” (rmyt) are related, and the tradition preserves this pun as an origin story. Read the creation of humans from Ra’s tears.
Ra’s daily journey: the solar boat and Apep
The most consistent Egyptian representation of Ra is not static but in motion. He sails.
Each morning, Ra rises in the east in his solar boat, called the Mandjet or the “Boat of Millions of Years.” He crosses the sky from east to west, illuminating the world. He is accompanied by other gods - most commonly Horus, Thoth, and Maat - who help him navigate and protect him.
At sunset, in the west, he transfers to a second boat, the Mesektet, and begins his journey through the underworld. The underworld journey is divided into twelve hours, each with its own gate, its own gods, and its own trials. In the seventh hour - the deepest and most dangerous - he faces the chaos-serpent Apep (also called Apophis), who tries every night to swallow the boat and stop the sun from rising. Read the journey of Ra through the underworld.
Apep is defeated each night, usually by the god Set, who stands at the prow of the solar boat and spears the serpent. Ra emerges from the underworld at dawn, rejuvenated, and the cycle begins again. Egyptian sunrise was, therefore, always a victory. The world had come through another night intact.
Ra grows old: the theft of his secret name
Ra rules for a long time. But he does not rule forever, and Egyptian tradition treats his aging as one of the great turning points of divine history.
The clearest version of this involves Isis. Isis, wanting the fullness of magical power, decided to force Ra to reveal his true name - the ren that would give her power over him. She waited until he was old and drooling. She gathered his saliva from the ground, mixed it with earth, and shaped a serpent. She left the serpent where Ra would walk.
When Ra passed, the serpent bit him. Because the serpent was made from his own substance, no god could heal him except by knowing his true name. Isis approached, offering to heal him if he would tell her the name. Ra listed his many public names. Isis rejected them all. The poison worked deeper. Eventually, in agony, Ra whispered his true name into her ear. She healed him. She kept the name. Read Ra’s secret name and Isis’s cunning.
This story marks a shift. Ra remains a great god, but the balance of magical power in the pantheon has moved. Isis is now his equal, and in some sense his superior.
Ra and the destruction of mankind
Another story of the aging Ra is even darker. Humans, whom Ra had created, began plotting against him. They spoke against his rule. Ra, angered, called a council of the gods and asked what should be done. The council decided humanity should be punished.
Ra sent his Eye - a personified aspect of himself, in this story identified with the goddess Sekhmet, the lion-headed war goddess - down to earth to slaughter humanity. Sekhmet went. She was extraordinarily effective. She waded through blood and killed with joy. Fields ran red.
Ra, watching, changed his mind. He wanted humanity restrained, not destroyed. But Sekhmet, once unleashed, could not be recalled. Ra devised a trick. He had beer brewed in enormous quantities and dyed red with ochre so that it looked like blood. He had the beer poured out across the fields at dawn. Sekhmet, arriving for her next day of slaughter, saw what she took to be a lake of blood, drank deeply, became drunk, and fell asleep. When she woke, her rage had cooled. Humanity survived. Read the destruction of mankind by Ra, Sekhmet’s rampage and pacification, and Sekhmet and the red beer.
The story preserves an unusual Egyptian idea: humanity’s continued existence is not something the gods granted freely. It is something they nearly withdrew, and something whose continuation depends on divine forbearance.
Ra compared to other solar gods
Solar deities appear in most world traditions, but Ra is unusual for the scale of his authority in the Egyptian pantheon.
| Tradition | Sun god | Form | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egyptian | Ra | Falcon-headed man with sun disk | King of the gods for most of Egyptian history |
| Greek | Helios | Man in chariot pulled by horses | Titan; later largely replaced by Apollo in solar role |
| Roman | Sol | Similar to Helios | Sol Invictus becomes state god in late Roman period |
| Vedic Hindu | Surya | Man in chariot pulled by seven horses | Still worshipped; central to the Gayatri mantra |
| Japanese | Amaterasu | Goddess | Ancestor of the imperial line; central Shinto deity |
| Aztec | Tonatiuh | Sun god requiring sustenance in human sacrifice | The current sun of the fifth age |
The parallel with Amaterasu is worth noting. Both are principal solar deities whose worship was central to national religion, and both are ancestral to the ruling family - Amaterasu to the Japanese emperors, Ra to the Egyptian pharaohs, who titled themselves “Son of Ra.”
Read the stories
Ra appears throughout Egyptian myth. Some entry points:
- The Journey of Ra Through the Underworld
- The Destruction of Mankind by Ra
- Ra’s Secret Name and Isis’s Cunning
- The Myth of the Eye of Ra
- The Creation of Humans from Ra’s Tears
- The Myth of the Celestial Cow
- Sekhmet’s Rampage and Pacification
Ra is the god who never stops working. The sun crosses the sky by day and battles chaos by night, and the whole ordered world depends on him not being defeated. What the Egyptians preserved in Ra is not a god of triumph but a god of continuation. The sun rises tomorrow. That is the promise. That is what he is.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the name Ra mean?
Ra (also spelled Re) is simply the Egyptian word for the sun. The god and the celestial body share the name, which reflects the Egyptian conception that Ra was not a god who governed the sun but the sun itself, personified and given divine status. The name is one of the shortest and oldest in the Egyptian pantheon.
What does Ra look like?
Ra is typically depicted as a man with the head of a falcon, crowned with the disk of the sun. The disk usually has a coiled cobra (the uraeus) rising in front of it, a symbol of royal and divine power. In some contexts he is shown as a full falcon, or as a scarab beetle (Khepri, his morning form), or as an old ram-headed man (his evening form as he enters the underworld).
What happens each night when Ra travels through the underworld?
Ra transfers from his day-boat (the Mandjet) to his night-boat (the Mesektet) at sunset in the west and begins the journey through the twelve hours of the night. In the seventh hour - the deepest and most dangerous - the chaos-serpent Apep tries to swallow the boat and stop the sun from rising. The god Set stands at the prow and spears Apep. Ra continues onward and emerges in the east at dawn, rejuvenated, to begin the next day.
Who is Apep?
Apep (also called Apophis in Greek sources) is the great chaos-serpent who opposes Ra each night. He is the personification of everything opposed to the ordered cosmos: chaos, darkness, non-existence. He is defeated every night but is never destroyed - he returns the next night to try again. The Egyptian universe requires an enemy that cannot be finally killed, only continually defeated, and Apep is that enemy.
Is Ra the same as Amun-Ra?
Amun-Ra is Ra combined with the god Amun of Thebes. Amun was the hidden god, originally the local deity of Thebes, who rose to prominence during the New Kingdom (from about 1550 BCE onward). At some point in that period, Egyptian theologians identified Amun with Ra, and the fused god Amun-Ra became the most important deity in Egyptian religion for centuries - hidden (as Amun) and manifest (as Ra) at the same time. The identification is characteristic of Egyptian theology, which often merged deities to combine their attributes.
Why did Ra send Sekhmet to destroy mankind?
Humans, whom Ra had created, began plotting against his rule as he grew old. Ra called a council of the gods, and they agreed that humanity should be punished. Ra sent his Eye - identified in this story with the lion-headed war goddess Sekhmet - to slaughter the rebels. Sekhmet’s rampage was so effective that Ra changed his mind and wanted to save humanity, but Sekhmet could not be recalled. He had beer brewed in enormous quantities, dyed red to look like blood, and poured across the fields; Sekhmet drank it, became drunk, and fell asleep. Humanity survived because of the trick.