Ra

Ra was the first and greatest of all the Egyptian Gods. He ruled the sun, and traveled across the sky each day in his boat (or barque). His voyages across the sky were dogged by the serpent Apep who would try to eat the boat each day. Cloudy or stormy days resulted when Apep was successful. At nights, Ra would travel in his boat through the Underworld, to return to the horizon the next morning.

Ra was the God of creation, and from him all the other Deities were descended, though he had no wife or Goddess counterpart. In early Egyptian history, the rulers of Egypt (the pharaohs) were considered to be direct incarnations of Ra. But as their culture evolved over time, the pharaohs became more closely related to Horus instead. Besides the creation of the world, Ra also stood for life, death and rebirth, justice, truth, and destiny.

The center of Ra's worship was at Heliopolis (near modern day Cairo), where a stone obelisk represented a petrified ray of sunlight. Though he was the most powerful of all the Deities in Egypt, he was no where near as popular for worship as was Isis or Osiris. Ra was a very distant God and rarely interceded for the improvement of mankind.

His animal form was the falcon, or a man with the head of a falcon. Whether shown as a man or a bird, Ra often has a crown made from the solar disk.