Ra: Eye of the Sun

Ra was a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion by the fifth dynasty. Identified primarily with the mid-day sun, the chief cult centre of Ra first was based in Heliopolis meaning "City of the Sun". In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was subsumed into the god Horus, as Re-Horakhtysky, earth, underworld. He was associated with the falcon. (and many variant spellings). He commanded

Ra is most commonly pronounced 'rah'. It is more likely, however, that it should be pronounced as 'ray', hence the alternative spelling Re rather than Ra. It is not known for sure what Ra's name means, but it is thought it may be a variant of or linked to 'creative', if not an original word for 'sun'. As his cult arose in the Egyptian pantheon, Ra often replaces Atum as the father, grandfather and great-grandfather of the deities of the Ennead, and becomes the creator of the world. Ra then was seen to have created Sekhmet, who becomes Hathor, the cow goddess, after she has sufficiently punished mankind as an avenging Eye of Ra, and so he is often said to be the father of both and brother to the god, Osiris. Eventually, humans were supposedly created from Ra's tears or sweat, leading to the Egyptians calling themselves the "Cattle of Ra".

Ra is primarily depicted as a man in artwork, wearing a pharaoh's crown (a sign of his kingship over the deities) and the sun disk on his head. Often he had a falcon's head, much like Horus. Sometimes, Ra is portrayed differently according to the position of the sun in the sky. At sunrise he was an infant, at noon a man, and at sunset an old man. This constant aging was suggested by the Egyptians as the reason Ra stayed separate from the world and let Osiris or Horus rule in his place. This idea is often coupled with the myth in which Isis is able to trick an elderly Ra, having ruled on earth as a human pharaoh, into revealing his secret name, and thus the secret of his power. Ra shared many of his symbols with other solar deities, in particular Horus.

The Benu bird is Ra's ba and a symbol of fire and rebirth; The sun disk, also shown as the hieroglyphic ⊙ ; Ankh, symbolizing the life given by the sun; Obelisk, representative of the rays of the sun and worshiped as a home of a solar god; Pyramids, aligned east/west Falcon; Bull; Uraeus, a cobra commonly seen wrapped around the sun disk. The Uraeus is the associated form of the goddess Wadjet, who was often depicted as a cobra, an animal thought only to be female and reproducing through parthenogenesis. Some traditions relate that the first uraeus was created by the goddess Isis who formed it from the dust of the earth and the spittle of the sun-god. The uraeus was the instrument with which Isis gained the throne of Egypt for her husband Osiris. As the sun, Ra was thought to see everything.