Ra - Ancient Egyptian God of the Sun
Ra was depicted as a man with the head of a falcon and a sun disc on his head.
Photo by Christa Galloway
Ra was the sun god and king of all gods.
He was one of the most important gods in ancient Egypt and ruled over all the other gods, as well as the sky, earth, and underworld.
Humans were created with Ra’s tears.
According to ancient Egyptian myth, Ra created himself from the ocean of chaos. He then made more gods with his blood, breath and spit, who then made the earth. Ra created the elements by speaking their names, and humanity sprang from his tears.
Ra had many different names.
To ancient Egyptians, Ra was the sun itself. The Egyptian word for sun is ‘Ra’, but there were different names for the sun depending on the time of day. He was Ra-Horakhty in the morning, Amun at noon, and Atum in the evening, just before he entered the underworld.
The sun was Ra sailing across the sky in a boat.
During the day, Ra rode in his solar boat called the "Barque of Ra" as he carried the sun from east to west across the heavens. In the evening, the boat became the Ship of a Million Souls as it picked up the dead and took them to the underworld.
Ra died every night and was reborn each morning.
Egyptians believed that Ra died each night when he traveled to the underworld and was reborn each morning.
