Introduction
Ra is the sun god, among the most important deities of the entire Egyptian pantheon, whose daily journey across the sky and nightly passage through the underworld structured much of Egyptian cosmology and royal theology.
Family
- Children: Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet, Ma'at
The Nightly Battle
Each night, Ra's solar barque travels through the underworld (Duat), where he must defeat the chaos-serpent Apophis, aided by other deities including Set, to rise again triumphant at dawn — a cosmic drama re-enacted daily and central to Egyptian ideas of order (maat) prevailing over chaos (isfet). Ra was frequently merged with other major gods to express his supremacy, most notably as Atum-Ra (the setting, aged sun) and Amun-Ra (fusing with the Theban state god). In Manetho's later dynastic tradition, Ra is also recorded as a legendary king of Egypt succeeding Ptah, a role recorded separately from this pantheon figure.
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.