RA, Father of the gods

Ra (often pronounced as Rah, but more correctly as Ré)is the ancient Egyptian sun god. He is often pictured as a hawk or as a hawk headed man with a solar disk encircled by a uraeus on his head. He is often pictured wearing the double crown of upper and lower Egypt.

Father of the first divine couple, Shu and Tefnut. Grandfather of Geb and Nut, whose children were Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys.

From very early times Ra was a sun god. He took on many of the attributes and even the names of other gods as Egyptian myths evolved. A good example of this is the god Ra and Amun merging to become Amun-Ra or Ra and Horus combining to become Ra-Harakhte.

One legend states that each day, Ra was born and began a journey across the sky. Ra was believed to travel in the Manjet-boat. or the 'Barque of Millions of Years'. He was joined on this daily journey by a crew of many gods . The Manjet-boat would sail through the twelve provinces, representing the twelve hours of daylight. At the end of each day Ra was thought to die and embarked on his night voyage. For this journey he was called Auf, which means 'corpse'. Ra sailed in a boat called the Mesektet-boat or night-barque on his journey through the twelve hours of darkness.