Ra
Ra is the
sun-god of Heliopolis in ancient
Egypt. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was subsumed into the god
Horus, as Re-Horakhty .
The sun is either the symbolic interpretation of Ra, his entire body, or just his eye. The symbols of Ra are the
solar symbols of a golden disk or the symbol ? . He was also associated with the Phoenix, as he rose again each morning in flames. According to
E. A. Wallis Budge he was the One god of Egyptian Monotheism, of which all other gods and goddesses were aspects, manifestations, phases, or forms of the god.
Encyclopedia
Ra is the
sun-god of Heliopolis in ancient
Egypt. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was subsumed into the god
Horus, as
Re-Horakhty .
The sun is either the symbolic interpretation of Ra, his entire body, or just his eye. The symbols of Ra are the
solar symbols of a golden disk or the symbol ? . He was also associated with the Phoenix, as he rose again each morning in flames. According to
E. A. Wallis Budge he was the One god of Egyptian Monotheism, of which all other gods and goddesses were aspects, manifestations, phases, or forms of the god.
Deity status
From the eighth dynasty onward he was elevated to the status of a national deity, and much later was combined with the
Theban god
Amun to become
Amun-Ra, the foremost deity of the
Egyptian pantheon. Amun-Ra was the most powerful god and as he grew and grew he made Egypt something of a theocracy. In later times, when the earth god
Atum evolved into a god of the setting sun, Atum became considered an aspect of Ra. Khepri, the less important god who pushed the sun across the sky each day, eventually was also absorbed into Ra, as the centuries wore on, becoming the aspect of Ra that is the rising sun. Also in later times, Ra was associated with
Heryshaf. Eventually, as another sun-god,
Horus, gained more importance, Ra himself was subsumed into just being an aspect of Horus, as
Re-Harakhty, which means
Ra, Horus of the two horizons.
Amon-Ra's identity with
Jupiter was acknowledged by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks even gave the name Diospolis, City of Zeus, to Thebes. He remained paramount for centuries except for a brief suspension during the time of
Akhenaten when a monotheistic worship of
Aten, the sun disk itself, was imposed on the kingdom of Egypt.
Ra itself, however, was also a monotheistic God. A
Hymn to Ra was written to stress the pantheistic nature of Ra to combat encroaching polytheism. In it, several gods and goddesses are described, not as beings in their own right, but certain forms of Ra. For example:
- "Praise be unto thee, O Ra, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the habitations of Ament, behold [thy] body is Temu.
- "Praise be unto thee, O Ra, thou exalted Power, who dost enter into the hidden palace of Anubis, behold [thy] body is Khepera."
Solar barge
In order to pass through Duat each night, so that he might rise in the morning, the fiery Ra was compelled to use a boat to avoid being extinguished by the waters. It was
Maàt, i.e. order, the antithesis of chaos, that guided the course of the boat. At the helm of the boat stood
Thoth, representative of the
moon, who symbolically stood next to
Horus, who, in early egyptian myth, represented the sky, and whose dark eye was the moon. It was Horus who steered
School is boring. Many of the other gods travelled in the boat with them, and one of them, possibly with the assistant Mehen , defended the boat from attack by the monster of darkness, who wished to devour Ra. In early mythology, it was
Set who was the hero defending the boat, and
Apep who was the attacker, but in later myth, after Set became regarded as evil, it was Thoth who defended and Set who was the demon. Temporary failure to protect Ra was said to be the cause of
solar eclipses, and mere difficulty in doing so was said to cause bad
weather.
Those who take Ra's Sun affiliation metaphorically however, note that in Egypt, God was the life and light. The best way to represent this is with the Sun, which provides life through
heating the
Earth and providing energy for
photosynthesis, as well as provides light for all to see. The Sun is then, not Ra, but an object which can be used metaphorically to help people understand Ra.
Hathor and Ra
Hathor and Ra once argued, and she left
Egypt. Ra quickly decided he missed her, but she changed into a
lioness that destroyed any man or god that approached. This form is characteristic of the melded Hathor-Sekhmet goddess. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeded in convincing her to return.
Ra in pop culture
- Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, built the boats Ra and Ra II in order to demonstrate that Ancient Egyptians could have communicated with the Americas or transferred pyramid-building technology. On May 17, 1970 Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Central America.
- Avant-garde jazz artist, Sun Ra, has got his name from Ra.
- Heavy-metal band Iron Maiden has an ancient egyptian theme in their 1984 release "Powerslave". The Eye of Ra is visible on the cover of the album as well as it is mentioned in the lyric in the song with the same title.
"Into the Abyss I'll fall - the eye of Horus
Into the eyes of the night - watching me go
Green is the cat's eye that glows -
in this Temple
Enter the risen Osiris - risen again"
- Rock band Utopia lead by Todd Rundgren had a 1977 album called RA that includes the song "Communion with the Sun".
- The television show Angel featured Ra in one of the episodes of season four, "Long Day's Journey". In the episode, an apocalyptic demon ritually murders five members, or totems of a mystical order called the Ra-Tet. These members are all linked to an embodiment of the god Ra.
- In the 1994 movie Stargate refers to the incredibly successfull and extensive science fiction [i] media franchise [i] ...
, Ra is the alien ruler of Abydos and serves as the main antagonist. - Apophis appears in the TV show "Stargate SG-1 is an American [i] television series [i] based upon the 1994 [i] science fiction [i] ...
" which was a tv series based on the movie. Ra himself is mentioned numerous times throughout the series, but only appears when SG-1 travels back in time in the 8th season finale Moebius. - Ra serves as the most powerful of the three Egyptian God Cards in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. "The Winged Dragon of Ra", as he is known in the American version, is a massive golden dragon that can transform into a giant phoenix as one of its many attacks. The other two God Cards are Osiris and the God of Obelisk .
- Ra appears in the game Age of Mythology. With Isis and Set, he is one of the Major Gods for the Egyptian civilization. Choosing Ra as the Major God gives the player's buildings a falcon motif, the Rain God Power, benefits to Priest Hero Units, and increased hitpoints for certain units and buildings.
- Ra is also a rock band lead by Sahaj , guitarist Ben Carroll, bassist P.J. Farley, and drummer Andy Ryan. Their latest album Duality is an exploration of the two sides of human nature, fear and love.
- The Dagger of Amon Ra was the second title in the Laura Bow adventure game series. The events are set in the 1920s and mostly take place in a museum with an Egyptian exhibition.
- Ra is also in Ragnarok Online as the MvP Amon Ra
- NBA player Rasheed Wallace, also known as 'Sheed' or 'Ra', has a large tattoo on his right deltoid depicting Egyptian worship to Ra.
- RA is the name of the night club located inside of the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The hotel has an Ancient Egyptian motif.
Notes
References
- Budge, E. A. Wallis. Egyptian Religion. Kessinger, 1900.
- Collier, Mark and Manley, Bill. How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Revised Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
- Salaman, Clement, Van Oyen, Dorine, Wharton, William D, and Mahé, Jean-Pierre. The Way of Hermes: New Translations of the Corpus Hermeticum and The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. Rochester: Inner Traditions, 1999.
