Re (Egyptian mythology)

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Re / Ra in hieroglyphics
Ideograms
C2

N5

C1
mostly
N5
Z1

or
with  determinative
N5
Z1
C2
or
D21
a

or
with  determinative
D21
a
N5
or
D21
a
N5
Z1

or
with  determinative
D21
a
N5
Z1
C2
at Horus

D10
Eye of Re
or
Right Eye of Re

Nickname
Old Reich
U28 G1 P3 W24 t
pt

Dja-Nut
Ḏ3-Nwt Who crosses
the groove
transcription Rˁ (w)
Sun god Ra2.svg
Re-Haracht

Re (also: Ra ) is the ancient Egyptian sun god . This means that the sun is itself a god and is therefore not created by a divine being. He can be described as probably the most important ancient Egyptian god until the later periods, since he made life on earth possible and allowed it to continue through the work of his power (the sun). His name simply means "sun" in Egyptian .

The highlighted worship of the sun as a sun cult can be traced back in royal mortuary temples to the 3rd dynasty under Djoser . With the beginning of the 4th dynasty , the sun cult under Radjedef gained special importance with the first mention of the king as " son of Re ", which increased in the 5th dynasty , from which the first iconographic representations are attested.

The cult of the sun god finally resulted in newly built solar sanctuaries - for example the solar sanctuary of Niuserre . In the 6th dynasty Re rose to the new main deity in Heliopolis and replaced Atum , who had previously led the local cult of the Ninth of Heliopolis . In the demotic papyrusHomecoming of the Goddess ” the eight deities from Hermopolis are referred to as “Fathers of Re”, who appeared again in his appearance as Miu (“the tomcat”) with the face of a cat when the Tefnut stayed in Punt .

meaning

This deity is the sustainer and ruler of the created world. Since the 4th dynasty the pharaohs called themselves " son of Re ", for example Chephren . Later he was merged with Amun , the most important god of Thebes , to become the main god of Egypt, Amun-Re . Several other gods also became deities with a solar aspect as a result of the general cult of the sun and were associated with the sun god Re, such as Chnum- Re, Sobek- Re, Month- Re etc. For the name cf. also Hesi-Re .

symbolism

His cult object was the obelisk . The forms of representation of Re are extremely numerous. Among other things, it was symbolically represented as a winged solar disk usually wound around by the uraeus serpent ; for example in human form connected with Horus as Re-Harachte - Atum with a falcon's head, which carries a solar disk. However, the falcon's head was only used for the duration of sunrise and sunset . It shows Re in the state of giving birth to Nut shortly before appearing on the horizon or in the state of dying after sinking below the horizon. Re was therefore often represented as " Horus in the horizon " (Harmachis). The associated red color explains the further equation of Re with the planet Mars .

Since Re, according to the traditional myth , rested as a star of the day in the interior of Nut during the night and was only reborn by her in the morning, his name was not allowed to be pronounced publicly during his nocturnal absence. In awe and fear of punishment if this taboo was broken , the Egyptians called Re during this period "the majesty of this God".

In Egyptian mythology

According to myth , gods ruled the beginning of the world as kings. Here Re (as Atum-Re) stood at the head of the Ninth of Heliopolis , as the god of origin who rose from the primeval hill to create humanity. Then he is said to have withdrawn again into the sky and then drove through the sky in the company of his daughter Maat in the sun boat during the day . In the evening, Re changed to the night barge and drove through the realm of the dead to be reborn the next morning at sunrise. With the help of Seth he had to fend off the attacks of the snake deity Apophis in the underworld.

Res ascent to heaven:
At the beginning of the time when the world was created, Re, king of all existence, was not a distant being, but lived on earth. His rule was heavenly; his only job was to check that things were going well now and then. But Re grew old and thought about ending his rule on earth, but many people despised him for it. The sun god enraged and sent his eye in the form of the goddess Sekhmet to destroy these people. Then he decided to turn his back on earth and from then on lived in heaven. But he had to see that the people below him fought and each blamed the other for the loss of the sun.

Apparent correspondence with Polynesian cultures

Rā is also called the sun in the Maori and other Polynesian languages. However, a sun cult as in ancient Egypt was alien to these cultures . It is a purely coincidental correspondence - the original Polynesian name for "sun" is * laqaa (which stands for * / laʔaː /) - especially since Ra for the transcription Rˤ (w) is a mere pronunciation convention in Egyptology, since the pronunciation of Egyptian, especially as far as the vowels are concerned, is not exactly known; a reconstruction for the pronunciation of Rˤ (w) is * / ˈliːduw / for the Old Kingdom , * / ˈriːduw / for the Middle Kingdom and * / ˈriːʕu / for the New Kingdom .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Re  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Reconstructs are marked with asterisks at the beginning, phonemic information in the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) with slashes.

Individual evidence

  1. Pyramid text 543a ; see also Christian Leitz u. a .: LGG, vol. 1 . P. 587.
  2. Daniel A. Werning: Modern transcriptions. In: Digital introduction to the hieroglyphic-Egyptian script and language. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , accessed on January 29, 2019 .
  3. Friedhelm Hoffmann , Joachim Friedrich Quack : Anthology of demotic literature (= introductions and source texts for Egyptology. Volume 4). Lit, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-8258-0762-2 , pp. 206 and 209.
  4. Bruce Biggs et al.: Protoform: LAQAA [OC] Sun. In: Polynesian Lexicon Project Online. University of Auckland , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  5. ^ Frank Kammerzell : Language Contacts and Language Change in Ancient Egypt , Göttingen 1998, pp. 33–34.