Ra: The Sun God

Ancient Egypt had a lot of myths. Like a lot. But one of the most important and some say the greatest is Ra, the sun god.

Iunu, or Heliopolis, is a city that is very symbolic for Ra. Its name translates to "city of the sun-god" so that makes sense. It is said to be the place where Ra originated. There are two versions to Ra origin story but they both end up creating Iunu.

Basically, there was said to only be darkness in this infinite sea called Nu. One version has an entity called Atum manifest itself as Ra as an island emerged from Nu. Another says that the island e

merged and Atum placed an egg by it with Ra inside. Either way, Ra then created other gods out of himself who then created gods of their self. It was kinda like infinite cell division, except the gods didn't lose anything.

Anyway, Ra got busy after creating the other gods. He went and named every element. And then he wept. I couldn't find the reason why he wept. Some say it's because he couldn't see his mother. But from his tears, humankind was formed. Ra was said to live amongst humankind until they started a sort-of rebellion against him. This led Ra to be angry. Rightfully so, he literally created them from his tears. He then left and sent an eye to go and kill everyone. This eye was loving this and the humans were crying because they were all being killed. This led Ra to be sad because they were creating tears just like how he created them. So he stopped the killings but refused to live with humankind anymore.

That created the day-night cycle. Ra would fly from the Eastern horizon to the Western horizon for 12 hours to reach the Otherworld, or the Underworld. Once he reached the Otherworld, he left the world in darkness for 12 hours until he emerged on the Eastern horizon thus creating a cycle.