World Religions › Ancient civilizations › Ancient Egyptian religion
Ra, the sun god
Prominent from c. 2500 BC (5th Dynasty)· Belief or practice· Ancient, indigenous & folk
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
Egypt's sun god and creator, who sailed across the sky by day and through the underworld by night.
See it on the World Religions map →What it is
Ra's main cult center was Heliopolis (Iunu), near modern Cairo. Egyptians pictured him as a falcon-headed man crowned with a sun disk, sailing a boat across the sky. Each night he traveled through the underworld, fighting the chaos serpent Apep, and was reborn at dawn. From about 2500 BC kings called themselves 'Son of Ra' and built him sun temples. He merged with other gods, as Amun-Ra and Ra-Horakhty.
Why it matters
Ra put the sun at the center of Egyptian kingship and cosmology; his daily rebirth modeled the hope of rebirth after death.
Sources and history
Pyramid Texts, temple inscriptions, royal titles, excavated sun temples at Abu Gurab, and New Kingdom tomb books such as the Amduat that map his night journey.
Questions and debates
How Ra related to other sun forms like Atum and Khepri, and why the 5th Dynasty promoted him so heavily, is debated.
Connections (2)
▸Ra, the sun god was long a chief god of Ancient Egyptian religionHistorical record
The connection
Ra anchored Egyptian kingship and cosmology: each pharaoh ruled as his son and, like him, upheld maat, cosmic order, against chaos. Rising gods were joined to Ra rather than replacing him: Thebes's Amun became Amun-Ra, king of the gods in the New Kingdom, keeping the sun at the center of Egyptian religion for over two thousand years.
When and where
Heliopolis (Iunu), near modern Cairo, his main cult center; 5th Dynasty sun temples at Abu Gurab about 2450 BC; Amun-Ra at Karnak in Thebes, supreme from about 1550 BC.
Historical evidence
Royal titles, the Pyramid Texts, temple inscriptions and the excavated sun temples of 5th Dynasty kings.
Questions and debates
Why the sun cult surged under the 5th Dynasty is uncertain; a later tale in the Westcar Papyrus says the dynasty's first three kings were sons of Ra.
▸Akhenaten and worship of the Aten built his faith on the sun cult of Ra, the sun godHistorical record
The connection
The Aten was not new: it was the visible disk of the sun, an aspect of Ra long worshiped at Heliopolis. Akhenaten stripped away Ra's falcon form and myths, keeping only the light-giving disk as the single source of life, with himself as its sole interpreter.
When and where
Egypt, around 1350 BC. His father Amenhotep III already honored the Aten; Akhenaten's early name for the god began 'Ra-Horakhty who rejoices in the horizon'.
Historical evidence
Early reign inscriptions name the god as a form of Ra-Horakhty, and Aten temples copied the open-air, sunlit design of Heliopolis's sun temples.
Questions and debates
How much Heliopolis's priests shaped the reform, and whether Akhenaten saw the Aten as Ra renewed or as something wholly new, is debated.