Egyptian

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Egyptian

Ra

The Solar Creator

Domain: Sun & Creation
Alignment: Lawful Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Sacred Eye of Ra

Speak with Ra

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

Ra is the Egyptian sun god, tied to Heliopolis (Iunu) and presented in the sources as a creator who rises from the waters of Nun, crosses the sky and the Duat in boats, and is defended against the serpent Apophis. This study rests on texts translated by Budge (the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus, the Turin Papyrus, the Destruction of Mankind, the Papyrus of Ani, the Amduat) and on the Pyramid Texts in Mercer's translation.

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

Sacred symbols

Solar disk, falcon, scarab, obelisk and the uraeus serpent

Family

Parents

Nun (The Primordial Abyssal Waters)

Unions

Rat-TawyHathor

Children

Shu (The Luminous Air)Tefnut (Moisture)Hathor BastetSekhmetMa'at (Cosmic Truth)

Genealogy according to Budge, Legends of the Gods (1912), Caps. I a III; Textos das Pirâmides, enunciado 486 (Mercer 1952); Livro dos Mortos, capítulo 17 (Budge 1895)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Book of the Dead (Monograph / Summary). read
Budge, E. A. Wallis, Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian Texts (Ch. I Creation, Ch. II Destruction of Mankind, Ch. III Ra and Isis). read
Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani. read
Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Egyptian Heaven and Hell, vol. I (The Book Am-Tuat). read
Mercer, Samuel A. B., The Pyramid Texts in Translation and Commentary. read

Studies

Wikipedia contributors, Ra. 2026. open
Wikipedia contributors, Egyptian sun temple. 2026. open
Wikipedia contributors, Heliopolis (ancient Egypt). 2026. open
Wikipedia contributors, Djedefre. 2026. open

Name and epithets

The name Rꜥ is written with the signs for the mouth (r) and the forearm (ꜥ), followed by the sun disk as a determinative, and it is the Egyptian word for the sun itself.

In the ancient sources

Pyramid Texts, Old Kingdom, from the pyramid of Unas (Fifth Dynasty). Royal funerary inscriptions in which the dead king addresses Ra-Atum, sits among the rowers of Ra or crosses the sky toward the horizon.

The myths

Creation according to the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus. The creation legend of the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus is inserted in the Book of overthrowing Apophis and is spoken by the god Neb-er-tcher, who declares that he came into bei…

Worship and archaeology

Djedefre, a king of the Fourth Dynasty, is named as the one who introduced the title Son of Ra (Sa-Re) and as the first to connect his cartouche name with the sun god.

How the god was depicted

Ra is portrayed as a man with the head of a falcon, probably a peregrine or lanner, with a sun disk encircled by a cobra.

What scholars debate

One Creator God or many solar gods. Budge, in 1912, saw in the Egyptian legends a remote Creator God, Neb-er-tcher, who had entrusted the world to subordinate spirits called gods, and he recalled that the Copts used tha…

After antiquity

The Greeks identified Ra with Helios, and the Greek name of Heliopolis, City of the Sun, renders Iunu. Obelisks from Heliopolis were carried off by the Romans after the conquest of Egypt.

Did you know?

In the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus, the creation legend is inserted among spells against Apep, and a longer version appears later. Budge cannot determine whether the scribe used two copies or expanded the first.

Codex relic

Sacred Eye of Ra. A solar amulet capable of unleashing the burning heat of the desert sun.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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