The Significance Of Re, The Ancient Egyptian Sun God

An amalgamation of Amun and Re, this powerful deity was acknowledged as the source of Hatshepsut’s kingship and, through his role in her divine conception, crucial to her very existence, (Allen, 2005-p.83). The blending of two powerful gods, Re with ancient connections to Heliopolis, an important religious and administrative centre which became the model for New Kingdom Thebes, and Amun, a Theban deity, ‘hidden but present in the heart’, created a significant source of Hatshepsut’s dynastic legitimacy, (Quirke, 2001-p.8,p.73; Allen,

The Ancient Egyptian society’s beliefs based their religion on polytheism which is defined as multiple ‘gods’ which were in charge of an area of life. There were up to 2,000 ‘gods and goddesses’ which controlled every aspect of the Egyptians lives. As a result the beliefs and religion belonging to the society affected the Egyptians to an ample extent. This can be observed through the values of : everyday life - , the judicial system - which was founded on religion and monitored by the religious leaders, the afterlife - to be believed that your body needed to be prepared for the afterlife and your honourable works on earth was judged by Osiris and the approach to the status of animals - for example cats were believed to be an earthly form of

The Gods and Goddesses all represented different features of the Earth that were all important in separate ways. The most important features were the Sun, the Sky, the Ground, the Water, and the Underworld. The Ancient Egyptians named each God/Goddess and gave them their feature. They gave Ra (the Sun God) the job of King of the Gods and Goddesses.

Ra was recognized as a religious figure and capture the environment when Ra was related to the Sun Boat of Ra. “The Sun Boat was a great ship, called the 'Barque of Ages ', in which Ra and his companion gods sailed through the sky giving light to the world and then through the perilous journey of the night, sailing through the underworld. The companion gods of Ra helped defend the sun god against the Serpent god Apep, which represented the victory of right over wrong… There were many prayers and spells to help Ra and the sun boat overcome Apep the evil serpent”. This shows how Ra the sun God was recognized as the chosen to defeat the evilness. People view him as the light to the world and view him as a God since they pray for him. This is where Ra, the god sun is view as a religious figure. Ra was part of the Tree of life. “The sun temple located in the City of Heliopolis, Egypt, was dedicated to Ra, the Supreme Solar God, and housed the Tree of Life. The fruit of the Tree of Life gave Eternal Life and the Knowledge of the Divine Plan, a map of destiny. The fruit of the Tree of Life was not available to mortals, only in the rituals relating

Ancient Egypt believed in many gods, making them polytheistic. One of their major gods was Ra, the god of the sun. They believed in a process called mummification. Mummification is a process that an important man in Egypt had to go through before going into the afterlife. The afterlife was very important to the Egyptians because they believed in second chances in life. Osiris and Anubis would judge an individual 's heart to the feather of Ma’at. If the heart outweighed the feather, then Ammut would devour the heart, condemning the individual to oblivion (Book of the Dead, Pinedjem II).

Gillum, Gary P. "The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion." Library Journal 127, no. 9 (May 15, 2002): 82. https://login.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/docview/196818432?accountid=10003.

The work of art from the Egyptian period is a statue representing the god of war, the sun, and rulers, Horus. It was created in the time frame from three hundred sixty to three hundred forty-two B.C. It is titled The Horus Statue of Nectanebo II because the god Horus is seen protecting one of the kings, also known as pharaohs, of Egypt, Nectanebo II. Another similar work of art, a

The main center for worship of Amon-Re was in Thebes. As seen, Egyptian religion was complex and complicated, as well as crucial to any Egyptian, but their polytheistic beliefs surely caused problems. As, “god-kings,” a lot of pressure was placed on the pharaohs. They were blamed for when the land did not produce well, when there were problems with other countries, and so on. The Egyptian gods were never considered by them to be very personal. As is almost always the case with polytheistic religions, the gods were distant and their relationship with common people was not strong. A big part of ancient Egyptian religion was their belief in the afterlife. Egyptians believed the soul to be made up of three parts. The “ba” was supposed to be person’s character or personality, the “ka” was the double of the person. Finally, the “akh” represented the person’s spirit after they died. The Egyptian practice of mummification was a crucial part of their religious system. It was believed that unless the dead person’s body was preserved, the person’s soul and body could not reunited and thus they person would not be able to participate in the afterlife.

We are now introduced to Ra, the ancient Egyptian solar deity, whom, identified for the most part with the midday sun, had become a major god in Egyptian religion and represented (like the earliest sun god) warmth, growth and light. The deity was of most importance, being seen as creator and ruler of all with the body (or eye of Ra) typically represented as a sun disk. Ra is credited with having created the plants, animals, months and seasons. With the belief that every night he would visit the dark world of death, only to survive the ordeal and rise in the morning with all of his creations, it only solidified his power and status. Around the second dynasty, his cult grew large enough to establish deity status. and by the fourth and fifth dynasties, pharaohs were claiming to be his earthly manifestations and even building solar temples, pyramids, and obelisks of Ra.

Another aspect of astronomy in religion was star and sky worship. Certain god and goddess were seen in constellations and other were represented by astronomical bodies. For example, the Milky Way Galaxy represented the sky goddess giving birth. Another example is Ra; like I said earlier, Ra is the sun god. To the egyptians the sun brought light, warmth and food. Many would pray to the sun in order to have a good harvest.

The sun god Ra was the most important and powerful of all in the polytheistic Ancient Egyptian religion (Shaw, 273). Not many of the images that come to mind when “Egypt” is mentioned contain clouds, and that is because the land of Egypt has sweltering weather. A direct influence from the environment can be seen on the religion as the sun had a huge impression of the lives of Ancient Egyptians and the sun god is the most worshipped and important of all. From their elaborate mummies and huge pyramids, it can be seen that the Ancient Egyptians concerned themselves a great deal with the afterlife. They believed that a person would not be able to proceed to the afterlife without recognising their secular body and therefore as many as could afford it mummified their relatives. Before mummification became a common practice, it often happened accidentally when bodies

A sphinx is a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. These creatures were built as sculptures near the temples as guardians. A sphinx symbolizes the intelligence of man united with the physical dominance of a lion (Giblin 121). The sphinx is a purely Egyptian creation, that was first started in the 4th dynasty at about 2575 BCE (Giblin 23). In Egypt sphinxes were generally associated with the sun god and with the king as a “living image. (Zivie-Coche 148). The sun god was a vital part of Egyptian theology in almost every dynasty. The sun-disk God, Aten became the monotheistic focus of Egyptian theology while Re and Atun were very prominent Egyptian gods that also represented the sun. Whenever sphinxes were placed in front of Egyptian temples, they had a solar symbol or significance attached to it.

He plays a major role in the Gods of Mesopotamian beliefs. For the Egyptians though, their sun God was named Ra. Ra was also a major God in Egyptian beliefs and seemed to have much power over other Gods. These two sun Gods could have had a lot of power because we as humans thrive best under sunlit hours. Our food grows better, the sunlight makes it is easier to work (seeing what we are doing), and it is easier to watch and defend ourselves from intruders and attackers.

Although Egyptians were polytheistic, they worshiped the sun god, Atum or Re, as he was the source of life. This is important because the Egyptian king took the title of “Son of Re”. The king, hence the descendant of the god, was the mother and father of all men without equal. The king akin to the living god, and his rule was law. Despite there being no laws, the words out of the king’s mouth were the law. As a king, he handles the army to protect his possessions and people.

Amun-Re is often referred to as the most important and powerful god of Ancient Egypt. Amun-Re was the god of the sun. “Amun-Re is the main name of the sun god, but also has three different names in which describe the phases of life that Amun-Re goes through each day.”(Budge, Pg. 92) When examining the ancient Egyptian god Amun-Re, four main points must be understood, including: the origin of Amun-Re, the characteristics of Amun-Re, how Amun-Re was worshiped, and how Amun-Re impacted Egyptian life.