cosmos-godsWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.
Ra & the Sun
The sun as the supreme god of the solar tradition, dying into the underworld each night and reborn each dawn.
Egyptians regarded the sun, the god Ra (or Re), as a great creator and the engine of the world's renewal — supreme above all within the solar tradition centered on Heliopolis, though Egyptian theology was polycentric and other cities exalted other creators. Each day he crossed the sky in his barque; each night he travelled through the underworld, battling chaos, to be reborn at dawn. From the Old Kingdom on, Ra was fused with other gods — most famously Amun-Ra of Thebes — making the sun a hub of Egyptian theology for millennia.
Key passages(4)
The Pyramid Texts · 2350 BCE
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