Ra is the sun itself and the first king of Egypt, a self-created god who rose from the primordial waters of Nun and spoke the rest of creation into being. By day he crosses the sky in his solar barque, aging through the day like a life in miniature — the scarab-child Khepri at dawn, the falcon-headed Ra at noon, the ram-headed Atum at dusk. By night he sails through the twelve hours of the Duat, the underworld, where the serpent Apep lies in wait to swallow him, and only after that nightly battle is won does dawn return.
From the New Kingdom onward Ra is rarely worshipped alone; he is folded into other gods rather than replaced by them. As Amun-Ra he becomes hidden power made visible as light — a fusion so complete that Greek visitors later equated Amun with their own Zeus. As Ra-Horakhty he merges with the falcon-god Horus, so that kingship and sunrise share a single office. Egyptians saw no contradiction here: a god’s names were understood to multiply, never to compete. Every pharaoh rules as his living son, and the daily death and rebirth of the sun becomes the pattern the whole of Egyptian religion is built to imitate.
“Homage to thee, O Ra, when thou risest [and to thee], O Temu, in thy risings of beauty. Thou risest, thou risest, thou shinest, thou shinest, at dawn of day. Thou art crowned king of the gods.” — The Book of the Dead: Theban Recension (1901), Papyrus of Qenna, tr. E. A. Wallis Budge
