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RA
*** Shopping-Tip: RA
{{Hiero|Ra|r:a-N5:Z1-C2 ''','''
N5:Z1-C2''', or '''
C2|align=center|era=egypt}}
:''This article is about the Egyptian god. For more meanings of '''Ra''', see
Ra (disambiguation).''
'''Ra''' (sometimes spelled '''Rê''') is the
Solar deity sun-god of
Heliopolis in ancient
Egypt. ''Ra'' originally meant "mouth" in the
Egyptian language, and was a reference to his creation of the deities of the
Ogdoad system, excluding the 8 concepts which created him, by the power of speech (compare how
Yahweh was said to have created the world). In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was subsumed into the god
Horus, as '''Re-Horakhty''' (and many variant spellings).
The sun is either the entire body of Ra, or just his
eye. The symbols of Ra are the
solar symbols of a golden disk or the symbol ⊙ (circle with a point at its centre). He was also associated with the
Phoenix (mythology) Phoenix, as he rose again each morning in flames.
Deity status
From the fifth dynasty (ca. 2400 BC) onward he was elevated to the status of a national deity, and much later was combined with the
Thebes, Egypt Theban god
Amun to become ''Amun-Ra'', the foremost deity of the
Egyptian mythology Egyptian pantheon. Amun-Ra was the most powerful God and as he grew and grew he made Egypt something of a theocracy. In later times, when the earth god
Atum evolved into a god of the setting sun, Atum became considered an aspect of Ra.
Khepri, the less important god who pushed the sun across the sky each day, eventually was also absorbed into Ra, as the centuries wore on, becoming the aspect of Ra that is the rising sun. Also in later times, Ra was associated with
Heryshaf. Eventually, as another sun-god,
Horus, gained more importance, Ra himself was subsumed into just being an aspect of Horus, as ''Re-Harakhty'', which means ''Ra, Horus of the two horizons''.
Amon-Ra's identity with
Zeus or
Jupiter (god) Jupiter was acknowledged by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks even gave the name Diospolis, City of Zeus, to Thebes. He remained paramount for centuries except for a brief suspension during the time of
Akhenaten (1350-1334 BC) when
monotheism monotheistic worship of
Aten, the sun disk itself, was imposed on the kingdom of Egypt.
Solar barge
Image:Ra Barque.jpg left|thumb|222px|Ra in his solar barge.
In order to pass through
Duat (the
underworld) each night, so that he might rise in the morning, the fiery Ra was compelled to use a boat (''Atet'' in the morning, ''Sektet'' in the afternoon) to avoid being extinguished by the waters. It was
Maà t, i.e. order, the antithesis of chaos, that guided the course of the boat. At the
helm of the boat stood
Thoth, representative of the
moon, who symbolically stood next to
Horus, who, in early egyptian myth, represented the sky, and whose dark eye was the moon. It was Horus who steered.
Many of the other gods travelled in the boat with them, and one of them, possibly with the assistant
Mehen (who may instead simply be nothing more than a boardgame), defended the boat from attack by the monster of darkness, who wished to devour Ra. In early mythology, it was
Set (mythology) Set who was the hero defending the boat, and
Apep who was the attacker, but in later myth, after Set became regarded as evil, it was Thoth who defended and Set who was the demon. Temporary failure to protect Ra was said to be the cause of
solar eclipses, and mere difficulty in doing so was said to cause bad
weather.
Hathor and Ra
In a varying myth,
Hathor and Ra (or
Tefnut and
Shu) once argued, and she left
Egypt. Ra (or
Shu) quickly decided he missed her, but she changed into a
cat that destroyed any man or god that approached. Thoth, disguised, eventually succeeds in convincing her to return
Ra in pop culture
*
Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, built the boats Ra and Ra II in order to demonstrate that Ancient Egyptians could have communicated with the Americas or transferred pyramid-building technology. On May 17, 1970 Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Central America.
* Avant-garde jazz artist,
Sun Ra, has got his name from Ra.
* Rock band
Utopia (rock band) Utopia lead by
Todd Rundgren had a
1977 album called ''RA'' that includes the song "Communion with the Sun".
* The television show ''
Angel'' featured Ra in one of the episodes of season four, "Long Day's Journey". In the episode, an apocalyptic demon ritually murders five members, or
totems of a mystical order called the
Ra-Tet. These members are all linked to an embodiment of the god Ra.
* In the 1994 movie ''
Stargate (film) Stargate'', Ra is the alien ruler of
Abydos (Stargate) Abydos and serves as the main antagonist.
* Ra serves as the most powerful of the three Egyptian God Cards in the
Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game came and TV Series. "The Winged Dragon of Ra", as he is known in the American version, is a massive golden dragon that can transform into a giant phoenix as one of its many attacks. As the greatest of the three God Cards- the others being
Osiris (Slifer the Sky Dragon ) and the God of Obelisks (Obelisk the Tormentor)- Ra is the second-most powerful monster in the game, after Exodia the Forbidden One.
* Ra appears in in the game
Age of Mythology.
* Ra is also a rock band lead by Sahaj (vocals, etc.), guitarist Ben Carroll, bassist P.J. Farley, and drummer Andy Ryan. Their latest album Duality is an exploration of the two sides of human nature, fear and love.
{{Ancient Egypt}}
Category:Egyptian gods
Category:Solar gods
af:Ra
bg:Ра
da:Ra
de:Re (Ägyptische Mythologie)
eo:Rao
es:Ra (mitologÃa)
et:Re
eu:Ra
fi:Ra
fr:Rê
he:רע (×?ל)
it:Ra
ja:ラー
ko:ë?¼ (ì‹ í™”)
lt:Ra
nl:Ra (zonnegod)
nn:Guden Ra
no:Ra (gud)
pl:Re (bóg)
pt:Rá
ro:Ra
ru:Ра (бог)
sl:Ra (mitologija)
sv:Ra (mytologi)
tr:Ra
wa:Diè Ra
zh:拉
see
Ra (disambiguation)
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