Introduction
Apophis (Apep) represents chaos itself rather than a born deity; Egyptian texts give him no parents, treating him instead as an ever-present, uncreated principle of disorder opposed to the created, ordered world (maat).
Family
- No further family relationships recorded in this tree.
The Eternal Adversary
Each night, as Ra's solar barque crosses the underworld, Apophis attempts to halt or devour it, and is beaten back by Ra himself alongside allied gods, most notably Set, whose strength was specifically valued for this role. Egyptian magical and ritual texts include detailed execration rites — reciting curses over and symbolically destroying wax or papyrus images of Apophis — intended to support Ra's victory and, by extension, the continued rising of the sun and stability of the cosmos.
Ancient Egyptian religion spanned three millennia and many regional cult centers, so parentage, roles and even gender pairings for a given deity often differ between the Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan, Memphite and Theban theological systems; the account above follows the most widely attested classical version.