Rha
The one who emerged from Primordial Waters
This Egyptian deity needs no introduction but a long description.
I will write something specific about it, extracted from different notes and documents I gathered during my artistic studio and research upon the ancient Egyptian culture
In the religious thought of ancient Egyptians, when two peoples from different regions came into contact, divinities of the two different cultures were unified both in the mystical as in the nominal dimensions.
This association of two, or more, deities did not mean a fusion that canceled the two original realities, but conferred on a divinity attributes that it did not have before.
Heliopolitan cosmogony confirms that god Rha is the supreme creator, the one who emerged from the primordial waters to generate everything.
According to the myth, when Ra became too old and tired to rule the Earth, god Nun commanded the goddess Nut to transform herself into a cow and raise the Sun god on her back.
Thus, when Nut raised Ra above the earth, it became heaven and Ra the king of heaven.
Therefore, the sun god crossed the ocean daily on his boat which, at dawn, appeared in the form of the Khepri beetle, at the zenith it changed into the Ra-Horakhty falcon, while at sunset it transformed into the Atum ram, to be swallowed up by the goddess Nut.
Inside the body of the goddess, Ra made his nocturnal journey into the underworld, placing itself in close relationship with the god Osiris and transforming itself into his Ba.
Ra is certainly the one who best represents the concept of multiplicity that characterizes all the entire Egyptian pantheon.
This peculiarity is clearly reflected in the syncretic nature of this god, especially if in relation to its solar aspects, generally absorbed by associated divinities, and in its particularly rich iconography.
In fact, it is usually depicted as a man with the head of a falcon, dominated by the solar disk, protected by a cobra, or even as a man with the head of a ram or beetle; he can also take the form of a phoenix, snake, bull, cat, lion and many other animals.
Ra was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the deities of the Egyptian pantheon, whose cult, from Heliopolis, spread universally throughout all the Egyptian reign, for the entire duration of the pharaonic civilization.
Above all, the figure of the pharaoh was linked to the god, with particular emphasis during the new age, when Amenhotep III dedicated a large number of temples to Ra, as proof of the growing solar cult, which then resulted in the Amarnian creed.
The cult of the god Ra was rooted within a popular level, as evidenced by the large number of amulets that represent him; partly intended to be worn, partly intended for funeral use.
Furthermore, there are several magical formulas used to invoke the divinity with the aim of stopping the course of time and correcting harmful events.
