Khepri

The Rising Sun

Domain: Rising Sun, Rebirth & Creation
Alignment: Lawful Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Solar Scarab

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The full Codex

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

Khepri (Khepera in the old spelling) is the Egyptian name of the sun in its morning form, tied to the verb kheper, "to come into being, to become, to roll". Its symbol is the sacred scarab, a beetle that rolls balls of dung. In the funerary and cosmogonic texts Budge translated, Khepera is the form in which the creator emerges from the primeval ocean Nun, produces himself and begets Shu and Tefnut. He is also the pledge of resurrection: the scarab enters the tomb as an amulet for the heart. This study rests on old translations, from 1895 to 1904, and states where verification is missing.

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

Sacred symbols

The scarab, the solar disk, the dung ball and the dawn

Family

Khepri

Children

Shu Tefnut

Genealogy according to Khepera é descrito como pai dos deuses e gerador de Shu e Tefnut no Papiro de Nesi-Amsu, segundo Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), pp. 294-304 e 357. Não há filiação de pais conferida nas fontes lidas; a lista fica vazia por isso, sem suposição.

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani. translation: English translation of 1895 (Project Gutenberg, no. 7145). read
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. I (1904). translation: Translates and describes the Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, the Amduat, the Book of the Dead (chs. 17, 30B, 64) and the Myth of Ra and Isis. read
Horapollo, The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous. translation: Translation by A. T. Cory, 1840. read

Studies

Wikipedia, Khepri. Wikipedia (en). open

Name and epithets

The name comes from the Egyptian root kheper, which Budge glosses as "to make, to form, to produce, to become" and, in a derived sense, "to roll".

In the ancient sources

Book of the Dead, chapter 17, New Kingdom, with older material. The dead man says "I am Tem in rising; I am the Only One; I came into being in Nu; I am Ra who rose in the beginning".

The myths

The creator who comes into being in Nun. The most explicit text on Khepera is the opening of the "Book of knowing the evolutions of Ra", which Budge translates from the Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu.

Worship and archaeology

Budge states that reverence for the beetle was older than that of Ra and spread over the whole country; the identification of Ra with the beetle-god would be a graft by priests onto older beliefs.

How the god was depicted

According to Budge's description, Khepera is shown in human form with a beetle on the head, or with the beetle in place of the head; in a scene by Lanzone, a seated Khepera has between his knees the head of the hawk of…

What scholars debate

A god in his own right or an aspect of the sun?. The sources read treat Khepera almost always as a form of Ra or of Tem.

After antiquity

In ancient reception, the sacred beetle remained in Greek writing and reflection. Horapollo explains the symbol as an image of the world and of the self-begotten; Budge recalls that Aelian and Porphyry repeated the beli…

Did you know?

According to Budge, the heart scarab of chapter 30B was to be of green stone with a gold rim; the rubric orders it anointed with oil and the words of power recited over it.

Codex relic

Solar Scarab. The sacred beetle that pushes the sun's disk across the sky, as it rolls its ball of dung on the earth.

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