Ra in his solar barque
Manifestation of the Ancient Egyptian Sun god as he travels across the sky
If you’ve been following my posts so far, you’ve learned about a few Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses: Osiris, the god of the underworld and symbolized by the Djed Pillar 𓊽; Isis, the wife of Osiris and a powerful goddess in her own right symbolized by the Knot of Isis 𓎬; and Horus 𓅃, the falcon-headed son of Osiris and Isis associated with the udjat eye 𓂀.
Today I’m continuing a series on the Ancient Egyptian sun god Ra 𓁛. Ra, like Horus, appears as a man with a falcon’s head. The key for Ra is to look for the sun disk 𓇳 or the sun disk circled by the uraeus cobra 𓇴 above his head.
Ra 𓁛 is one of three manifestations of the Ancient Egyptian sun god as he travels on his solar barque 𓊞, or boat, during the day. At sunrise the sun god takes on the form of the scarab beetle Khepri 𓆣 and rolls the sun up from the horizon. At midday the sun god travels as Ra 𓁛 across the sky. At sunset he transforms again into the ram-headed god Khnum 𓁠 and navigates his barque 𓊞 through the underworld.
This post’s scarf includes an image of how the Ancient Egyptians portrayed the solar barque 𓊞. It looks much like the boats in which people would have navigated the Nile. Early boats were bundles of reeds lashed together with rope. Later watercraft were made of wood.
The best preserved example of these barques 𓊞 belonged to the Pharaoh Khufu, who ruled Egypt from roughly 2,589 BC to 2,566 BC and was buried in the Great Pyramid at Giza. The boat was discovered at the pyramid complex. You can view the reconstructed vessel at its new home in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
I encourage you to read more about Ancient Egyptian philosophy, as a social media post can’t do justice to the nuances of an ancient religion.
Ra in Solar Barque scarves are available made-to-order in my Etsy shop.
A portion of the proceeds from each sale benefits the Theban Mapping Project Library, which provides books and literacy programs to the locals of Luxor, Egypt.
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Reference: Wikipedia, BBC “In pictures: Egypt pharaoh's 'solar boat' moved to Giza museum”
Images © 2023 EEWL
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