Ra

Ra - Sun God, King of the Gods
a falcon crowned with a sun disk or a man with a falcon's head

Ra was the God of the Sun. He sailed across the heavens in a boat called the 'Barque of Millions of Years'. At the end of each day Ra was thought to die and sailed on his night voyage through the Underworld, leaving the Moon to light the world above. The boat would sail through the twelve doors, representing the twelve hours of night-time. The next dawn, he was born again.

It was not always smooth sailing. During the day Ra had to fight his chief enemy, a snake called Apep. He was helped by the other gods, such as Seth and Bastet.

The sun disk on Ra's head often has a cobra round it. A cobra appears on the forehead of Pharaohs, like Tutankhamun.

As the sun travelled across the sky throughout the day, Ra took different forms. The rising sun was called Khepri, and had a scarab beetle for a head! The scarab pushes a ball of dung along so it can lay its eggs in it, and the Egyptians imagined their sun god pushing the sun in the same way.

Egyptian Gods index