Ra: The Ancient Egyptian Sun God
The story behind the EEWL Ra Seated scarf
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 of Horus 𓂀.
Today I’m introducing a new god in the pantheon: the sun god Ra 𓁛. It can be hard to distinguish Ra from Horus at times, as both are depicted as men with falcon’s heads. 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.
In some cases, The Ancient Egyptians actually merged Ra and Horus into another deity: Re-Horakhty: The Horus of the Two Horizons.
Ra 𓁛 is one of three manifestations of the Ancient Egyptian sun god as he travels on his solar barque, 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 through the underworld. I’ll share more about this iconography in future posts.
I also drew inspiration for this pattern from depictions in the Book of the Dead. This book is often buried with mummies and provides instructions and spells a person will need to navigate the underworld, survive the Weighing of the Heart, and pass on to an afterlife in the Field of Reeds. Several gods and goddesses often bear witness to the weighing of the heart, and you’ll see them seated with their knees drawn up before them, just like Ra 𓁛 is in this pattern.
To see a few examples of this scene, you can look up the Book of the Dead of the Priest of Horus, Imhotep (Imuthes), Early Ptolemaic, (ca. 332–200 BCE) housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You also can also look up the Judgement Scene from Book of the Dead of Hunefer, New Kingdom, 19th dynasty, (ca 1290–80 BCE), housed at The British Museum.
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 Seated scarves are available with limited inventory or 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.
Reference: Wikipedia, Daily Art Magazine, Met Museum
Images © 2023 EEWL
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