50 Fun Facts About Ra

Ra was the ancient Egyptian deity of what?

He was identified above all with the noon-day sun.

With which bird's head is Ra most commonly depicted?

The falcon form comes from his merger with the sky god Horus.

What sits on top of Ra's head in his classic depiction?

The rearing cobra, or uraeus, became the emblem of royal authority on pharaohs' crowns.

Which city, later called Heliopolis by the Greeks, was Ra's chief cult centre?

Heliopolis simply means Sun City.

What did Ra sail across the sky each day?

Egyptian kings were buried with real boats, such as the Khufu ship at Giza, for the same journey.

What was the name of Ra's day boat, the 'Boat of Millions of Years'?

The Mesektet carried him through the twelve hours of night.

Which animal's head did Ra take on the night boat through the underworld?

In this form he was called the ram of the west.

Which giant serpent tried to stop Ra's boat every night?

Also called Apep, he embodied isfet, chaos, and could halt the boat with a hypnotic stare.

Which god, elsewhere a villain, rode with Ra and overcame the serpent each night?

Set's battles with the serpent may have explained thunderstorms, and its movements earthquakes.

Into how many hours, each with a guarded gate, was Ra's underworld journey divided?

The Amduat and the Book of Gates map this journey on New Kingdom tomb walls.

With which god of the dead did Ra merge while in the underworld?

Each dawn was seen as Ra's rebirth from the sky goddess Nut.

Which scarab-beetle god represented Ra as the morning sun?

The image comes from dung beetles rolling their balls across the ground.

Which ram-headed god was seen as the evening manifestation of Ra?

Between them Ra himself stood for midday, when the sun was at its peak.

Which god's name was combined with Ra's to make the New Kingdom's 'King of the Gods'?

Amun's name meant the hidden one, and he was patron of Thebes.

Which sky god was fused with Ra in the name Ra-Horakhty, '... of the Two Horizons'?

Ra-Horakhty appears enthroned in many Third Intermediate Period copies of the Book of the Dead.

Which primeval mound rose from the waters of Nun at the start of creation?

The word also names the pyramidion, the capstone of a pyramid.

From what flower did Ra emerge at the dawn of time in one version of the creation myth?

Ra then created Shu, god of air, and Tefnut, goddess of moisture.

Which two deities were the first pair Ra created?

They stood for the principles of life and right, or justice.

From what were humans created, according to some accounts of Ra?

Ra called all things into being by speaking their secret names.

Which goddess did Ra send as his Eye to punish humankind for plotting against him?

She was the lioness form of Hathor, another daughter of Ra.

How did Ra stop the slaughtering goddess from wiping out humanity?

The tale is told in the Book of the Heavenly Cow, first found in Tutankhamun's outer shrine.

Which goddess is called the 'cat of Ra' and beheads the serpent to protect him?

In another account Ra himself kills the serpent while in the form of a cat.

Which goddess once danced naked before Ra to cure him of a sulk?

Without Hathor, Ra was said to fall into deep depression.

How did Isis force Ra to reveal his secret name?

She passed the name to Horus, strengthening his claim to kingship.

Which sacred bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its cult at Heliopolis?

Apis was the bull of Ptah at Memphis and Buchis the bull of Montu.

Which group of nine gods did Atum-Ra originate as the first being?

Amun, by contrast, belonged to the Ogdoad, the eight of Hermopolis.

Which royal house made Ra a state deity and built sun temples in his honour?

Its kings claimed to be sons of Ra by the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis.

How many Old Kingdom sun temples have actually been uncovered by archaeologists?

They stood at Abu Gorab and Abusir, about 15 km south of modern Cairo.

Which title did pharaohs adopt from the Fourth Dynasty onward to signal descent from Ra?

Ra was said to have been the first king of Egypt himself.

Which pharaoh replaced Ra and the other gods with the sun disc Aten?

Tutankhamun soon reopened the old temples and restored Amun.

How is the Aten usually depicted?

The word aten originally just meant a disc, anything flat and round.

Which heron-like bird of Heliopolis, linked to Ra, may have inspired the Greek phoenix?

New Kingdom art shows it as a great grey heron with a two-feathered crest, sometimes perched on the benben.

In how many forms does the Litany of Re invoke the sun god?

The text decorates New Kingdom royal tombs.

Which physical description is given of the aging Ra in some texts?

When too old to reign on Earth, he withdrew to the sky on the back of the heavenly cow.

Which two companions, Perception and Command, sailed with Ra on his boat?

Heka, magic, made up the third of the crew.

Which female aspect of Ra was regarded as his wife or daughter and as Montu's consort?

Montu himself began as a manifestation of the sun's scorching heat.

Which epithet, meaning 'Bull of his mother', did Ra share with Amun in the New Kingdom?

As Kamutef he was both son and husband of Hathor, fathering himself.

What put an end to the worship of Ra?

His cult had grown from roughly the Second Dynasty, some three thousand years earlier.

Which actor played the alien Ra in the 1994 film Stargate?

The film's Ra came to Earth in ancient times to possess human bodies and extend his life.

Whose 1970 reed-boat expedition gave its name to a 1972 documentary titled Ra?

Heyerdahl named his papyrus boats Ra and Ra II after the sun god.

Which god's cult wrote most Old Kingdom pyramid texts, which is why Ptah barely appears?

Ptah was the creator god of Memphis and husband of Sekhmet.

Which Egyptian word for the horizon, pictured as a gate, did Ra pass through at sunset?

Beyond it lay the Duat with its subterranean Nile.

Because humans were said to come from Ra's tears and sweat, what did the Egyptians call themselves?

All forms of life were believed to have been created by the sun god.

What was the name of Ra's evening boat, which carried him through the underworld?

Aboard it Ra took his ram-headed form; the two barques together were called the Atet.

Besides Perception and Command, which god of magic accompanied Ra on his sun-boat?

Hymns, prayers and spells were recited to help the boat overcome the serpent of chaos each night.

Besides swallowing it, how else did the chaos serpent try to halt the sun-boat each night?

The serpent's malevolent gaze was a potent weapon, and Ra's own eye was one of the few powers that could counter it.

In the myth of the Eye of Ra, the eye is also equated with which star whose rising heralded the Nile flood?

The Egyptians called it Sothis; its heliacal rising at the start of the year signalled the inundation.

In the 'Distant Goddess' myth, the runaway Eye of Ra wanders as a wild feline in which far-off lands?

One of the gods, sometimes the hunter Anhur and sometimes Shu, is sent to placate her and bring her home.

Amun, later fused with Ra, was originally identified with which natural force?

As a member of the Ogdoad he was believed to create through breath, which made him a god of air rather than the sun.

Under which Greek and Roman names was Amun-Ra worshipped outside Egypt?

His oracle at Siwa Oasis drew pilgrims, and Greek historians record his cult in Libya and Nubia.