Hapi

The Lord of the Nile Flood

Domain: Nile, Flood & Fertility
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Water
Relics of Power: Jars of the Flood

Speak with Hapi

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5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Ancient Egyptians

Region

Nile Valley, Egypt

Period

c. 3100 BC – 400 AD

The Egyptian gods were worshipped for over three millennia along the banks of the Nile, with monumental temples at Karnak, Luxor, and Heliopolis. The pharaohs were held to be divine, and life revolved around cosmic order (Maat) and preparation for the afterlife. The cult endured until the rise of Christianity in Roman Egypt.

At the Opet festival, Amun's sacred barque sailed from Karnak to Luxor amid celebrating crowds. In the temples, priests woke, dressed, and fed the god's statue every day, and the Beautiful Festival of the Valley carried the deities to visit the shore of the dead.

At a glance

Hapi, written Hep in the oldest forms and Hap later, is the name of the Nile and of the Nile god in the Egyptian texts consulted. Budge describes him as a man with a woman's breasts, a sign of fertility and nourishment, and as lord of the annual flood that fed Egypt. The cited texts are the Hymn to the Nile in Erman's translation, Budge's accounts of the god, the passages of Herodotus and Diodorus on the flood, and Allen's translation of the Pyramid Texts. There is no long narrative myth of Hapi here: what the sources give are hymns, images, identifications with other gods and the dread of a flood that fails.

15 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The water jars, the papyrus, the lotus and the full belly

Family

Hapi

Unions

IsisNekhebet (counterpart of Hapi of the South, according to Budge)Uatch-ura (equivalent of Nekhebet in the North, according to Budge)Nut

Genealogy according to Budge, Os Deuses dos Egípcios, vol. I, cap. II (p. 42-48); sem filiação divina de Hapi nas fontes lidas

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Erman, Adolf (ed.), The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (translated by A. M. Blackman). read
Allen, James P. (trans.), The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. read
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, book I (Loeb Classical Library edition, at LacusCurtius). read
Herodotus, Histories, book II (An Account of Egypt, translated by G. C. Macaulay). read

Studies

Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. I. 1904. open

Name and epithets

Hapi Hep, Hap, Hapi: Names of the Nile and of the Nile god; Budge says Hep, later Hap, is a very ancient name of the river and that the meaning of the name has not been satisfactorily explained.

In the ancient sources

Hymn to the Nile (Adoration of the Nile), two school manuscripts of the Nineteenth Dynasty, according to Erman. Text badly corrupted by apprentice scribes; the translation has gaps.

The myths

The Hymn to the Nile: the river that issues from the earth. The central text about the god is the Hymn to the Nile, which Erman translates under the title Adoration of the Nile.

Worship and archaeology

Erman says the Nile was regarded as a god but, unlike the other great divinities, had no regular organized cult; so the hymn differs from the old hymns to divinities and thanks the god for the blessings he gives to men.…

How the god was depicted

Budge states that Hep or Hapi is always depicted as a man, but with a woman's breasts, which indicate the god's powers of fertility and nourishment.

What scholars debate

Hep in the Pyramid Texts. Budge states that one of the oldest mentions of Hep is in the text of Unas, line 187, and that line 431 speaks of the destroying power of Hep.

After antiquity

In the open sources, the reception of Hapi appears in three layers. The first is scholastic: the hymn survives in school manuscripts, and Erman says the schoolboys corrupted much of it.

Did you know?

Herodotus (II.13) heard from the priests that in the time of king Moeris eight cubits of flood watered Egypt below Memphis, and that in his own day fifteen or sixteen were needed at the least.

Codex relic

Jars of the Flood. The overflowing vessels from which pours the annual flood that fertilizes the banks of the Nile.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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