Ra

Description of Ra

Ra Egyptian God was the main solar deity of ancient Egypt. The sun god is the source of light, energy and life. He is the creator of the cosmos and its laws. The solar cult is closely related to such concepts as health, children, courage, and the fate of the country. The name Ra (Re) is the Egyptian word for the sun, the most visible of the divine forces that created and sustained the existence of the world.
It was the god Ra who established the cycles of the Egyptian year, the time and the flood of the Nile itself, thus ensuring the very possibility of successful agricultural production in the valley of the great river.
The journey of a deity across the sky has many mythological variations. The Sun-Ra could fly across the sky on its wings. Therefore, the solar disk with wings is one of the most widespread and most important symbols of Ancient Egypt.
This is also why he is often depicted as a man with the head of a falcon or a hawk, that is, in the guise of powerful birds that can soar high in the sky.
Another equally popular option was the movement of the deity across the sky in a boat. In this case, the sky was understood as the curved giant goddess Nut (the sky), on whose body Ra floats.

Style Variations

Bold – Light – Solid – Duotone
Each variation is included in the file package.

Egyptian main description

Egyptian Symbols

Egyptian hieroglyphics are arguably one of the most famous examples of symbolism across history. Created by the ancient Egyptians, this served as their formal writing system. Hieroglyphics can be dated back to the 32nd century BC, and perhaps even earlier. Evidence demonstrates that this writing system continued into the Roman period of the 4th century AD. However, much of the knowledge of hieroglyphics and their meanings were lost after the end of pagan temples in the 5th century. There was no existing knowledge of what these symbols meant, how they were meant to be read and their significance. Hieroglyphics were decoded in the 1820s with the aid of the Rosetta Stone by Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion. These symbols are not just phonetic sounds or symbols. In fact, they are a combination of different elements. As Jean-François Champollion discovered, hieroglyphics are a “complex system” that encompasses “figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once.” For many Egyptians, this form of writing was seen as the “words of God” and thus used by priests. Generally, hieroglyphics in cursive form were used for religious texts and engraved into wood or written on papyrus. They are written in rows or columns and can be read either left to right or right to left. The direction can be established by seeing which way the human or animal figure faces at the beginning of the line.