Ra, The Creator God of Ancient Egypt

By Fayza HaikalThe American University in Cairo

In a northwestern quarter of suburban Cairo, covered by 20 meters of earth,
development and the lost echoes of history, is ancient Iwn, the city that witnessed
the creation of the universe. This city, later called Heliopolis (city of the sun-god) by
the Greeks and later Ain-Shams (eye of the sun) by the Arabs, is probably one of
the oldest religious sites in the world. While its unexcavated remnants lie under
centuries of fields and settlements, the place remains a symbolic monument to Ra,
the greatest god of ancient Egypt. The origin story of how Ra spawned all that is
known is both fascinating and illuminating:
Before creation, according to Egyptian mythology, only Darkness embraced the
Primeval Ocean out of which life would come. When the breath of life was strong
and ready, the entity called Atum decided it was time for Creation to begin. An island
emerged from the water to support this divinity, who manifested itself in the form of
Ra, the sun god of Egypt.
On a Primeval hill, Ra created out of himself the first gods, Shu (Dryness and Air),
and his partner Tefnut (Humidity), who would engender other gods to complete the
Cosmos: Geb the Earth god and Nut the Sky goddess. In turn, these two birthed the
Principles of life, namely Osiris the Perfect Being, who eventually would rule over
the rest of the world—which Ra was busy creating by naming the elements. And by
the way, humankind happened out of the tears of his eyes.
Osiris was a kind and wise ruler who taught humans agriculture and civilization. With
his sister/wife Isis, who helped her husband with creativity and magic, they formed
the perfect couple. Their brother Seth was strong but unruly, the opposite of his
brother. In fact, Seth envied Osiris so much that he killed him so he could inherit his
throne and rule Egypt the way he wanted. Seth’s sister/ partner Nephthys could not
stop the murder despite her love for their siblings.
Killing Osiris turned out not such a bad idea. He was resurrected through the magic
of his wife long enough to impregnate her with son Horus, who would later avenge
his father and recapture the throne of Egypt. Then Osiris departed to the Otherworld
to rule over the deceased, thus ensuring resurrection and the cycle of life.
Yet the myths do not end there. While the aging Ra was fine-tuning his creations,
humanity rebelled against him. The god decided on extermination, asking his tear-
giving eye again for help. To fulfill her task, the eye transformed herself into a fierce
lioness and began slaughtering humanity, delighted in her feeding. When Ra saw
the carnage, he felt sorry for the beloved children who, like tears, ‘came out of his
eye.’ He stopped the massacre but refused to live more among humans. This led to
his journey to the Otherworld, where Ra created the 12 hours of day by sailing the
sky from the Eastern horizon to the West, illuminating the world and allowing all
creations to flourish under his rays. Reaching the Western horizon, Ra then left the
earth in darkness for 12 hours of night while he sailed the Underworld, illuminating
the dead, destroying the enemies of creation, and regenerating himself in a union
with Osiris, the god of resurrection.
When Ra appeared at dawn in the Eastern horizon, he took the form of a falcon,
known as Hor-akhty, or Horus of the Horizon, the falcon who flies high in the sky
(Horus = one who is high up.) But Ra had other forms. He also could be represented
as a scarab called kheper (the one who comes into being)—an analogy based not
only on the pun between the name of the scarab and the verb “to happen’, but also
because the scarab, who arises from desert sands at the first rays of the sun,
pushing a ball of dung carrying his eggs, was believed to be self-created. By midday
the sun-god was again Ra and represented by the sun-disk. At sunset he became
Atum, an old man who had completed his life cycle and was ready to disappear to
be regenerated for a new day.
Given this story, the Sun God Ra has always been the greatest god in Egypt. In the
Old Kingdom (2800 BCE), when Egypt established its institutions and expressed its
royal ideology, the divinized king of Egypt was considered the son of the Sun God.
During a coronation, the king’s name as son of Ra was inscribed on a cartouche
next to one naming him as King of Upper and Lower Egypt. Kings erected temples
for him, endowing these temples with lands and clergy to serve his cult, and they
added sun god chapels to their own memorial temples throughout the country. By
the New Kingdom (c. 1500 -1000 BCE) the cult of Amun, the political god of the
Empire, tried to overshadow Ra’s importance. But the kings of the 18th dynasty
reacted strongly. The decorations of their tombs in the Valley of the Kings in
Western Thebes support the supremacy of the sun god, in whom kings merged after
death to partake in eternal life. In the brief ‘monotheistic episode’ of Akhenaton, the
king denied any god but the sun god himself and wrote hymns to the god so
marvelous they were later echoed in the biblical psalms of King David. Even after
the reign of Akhenaton, most of Egypt’s great gods synthesized with Ra as Amon-
Ra, Khnum-Ra, Sobek-Ra, and so forth. It would take yet more centuries and
Roman conquest before the cult of Ra declined.
And yet, even today, in a modern Egypt entranced by its ancient civilization, the tale
endures. Reflections of Ra are still heard in folklore as his fiery eye is evoked in
popular songs and local expressions. The word Ra also appears in everything from
Hollywood films to video games. Clearly, the resurrection of this greatest ancient
God continues as predictably as the sun rising in the east.

Reference:
https://arce.org/resource/ra-creator-god-ancient-egypt/#:~:text=On%20a%20Primeval
%20hill%2C%20Ra,and%20Nut%20the%20Sky%20goddess.