RA - Path of the Sun God

The mythology of the sun god ra can be traced back to early mesopotamia. Ra had a number of origin stories. He was either self-created, or one step removed from the creation of the universe. No matter the origin story, Egyptian lore held that most of the major Egyptian gods were direct descendants of Ra. The Pharaohs also claimed direct descent from Ra, and used it to justify their rule. There are several different stories that explain Ra’s origin. These tend to be differentiated based on whether Ra is considered the ultimate god or simply a very important god. In one story, in the beginning of the world there was only darkness and an infinite ocean. In this space, Ra willed himself into existence and then created other gods. Explore mythology, symbols, and powers of Ra, the ancient Egyptian sun god. Discover when he became the primary deity of the Egyptians, the symbols associated with Ra, how he is represented in human and animal form, and his domain of godly powers. Updated: 01/11/2022 The sun god ra was worshipped in the city of heliopolis. Ra is first mentioned in the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE), the oldest religious works in the world, which were inscribed on the sarcophagi and walls of tombs at Saqqara. In these, Ra gathers the soul of the king to himself and takes him to the paradise of the Field of Reeds in his golden barge. Worship of Ra was already well established at the time these texts – which are thought to derive from a much earlier oral tradition – were inscribed. His cult center was at the city of Iunu (better known as Heliopolis, the Greek name, which means “city of the sun god”). Ra is depicted in the Pyramid Texts not only as the supreme ruler of the gods, nor simply a comforter of the newly arrived soul in the afterlife, but as the embodiment of divine order and balance. Solar temples were built for Ra but did not contain a statue of the god. Instead, they were created to be open to the sunlight that Ra represented. The earliest known temple built in honor of Ra exists in Heliopolis (what is now a Cairo suburb). This solar temple is known as “Benu-Phoenix” and is believed to have been erected in the exact spot where Ra emerged into creation. For more than 2,500 years, Heliopolis was dedicated to the worship of the sun god Ra, who was believed to reside within the temple’s sacred temenos. Smaller chapels also served other deities, such as Horus and Hathor, while the ancient religious writings now known as the ‘pyramid texts’ state that the gods returned to their birthplace to resolve disputes. On such occasions, a divine tribunal would gather at Heliopolis to deliver rulings in cases where one god had trespassed on another’s interests. Unsurprisingly, ambitious mortals also sought to win the favour of the gods at Heliopolis, and a succession of pharaohs made their mark on the complex. The sun god ra was believed to bring in the new year. As the sun god, Ra was responsible for making the sun rise and set each day. It was said that he took two trips across the water each day: one to bring the sun up and one to bring it down again. The early morning trip was known as Matet, meaning an increase in strength, while the evening trip was called Semktet, or a decrease in strength. There were also specific names associated with Ra in the early morning and in the evening. In the morning, he was often called Khepri, and was depicted as a person with a scarab beetle for a head. In the evening, he was more often known as Atum. This policy established the king (known as pharaoh only in the New Kingdom) as the god’s own emissary on earth and demigod in his own right. By the time of the New Kingdom, Ra had been replaced by Horus as the god of the king while he lived and reigned and by Osiris after his death. In keeping with the belief that Ra was the Self-Created from whom all else came, however, it would still have been the power of Ra behind both Horus and Osiris. The tears of the Eye of Ra are part of a more general connection between the eye and moisture. In addition to representing the morning star, the eye can also be equated with the star Sothis (Sirius). Every summer, at the start of the Egyptian year, Sothis’s heliacal rising, in which the star rose above the horizon just before the sun itself, heralded the start of the Nile inundation, which watered and fertilized Egypt’s farmland. Therefore, the Eye of Ra precedes and represents the floodwaters that restore fertility to all of Egypt.