was probably an ancient sky god, seen as a soaring bird who
was manifest in the sun itself; he was known as Re-Harakhty,
the god of the horizon, or sunrise. He was at first the son
of the sky goddess Hathor (in Egypt the sky is female and
the earth male). Later, as the tendency to group the impor-
tant gods into families developed, he was known as the son
of Osiris, the god of fertility and the underworld. Osiris’ sis-
ter-wife, Isis, mourns for her dead husband and secretly raises
their son Horus to do battle with Osiris’ murderer, his broth-
er Seth. In this family, the sun god, Re, was combined with
an older creator god, Atum. In Heliopolis, a temple com-
pound just north of modern Cairo near the old capitol of
Memphis, a powerful priesthood built up the cult of Re-
Atum, beginning at least in the fourth dynasty (2600 BCE).
This is the period in which were built the first great pyra-
mids, which pointed toward the sun. In the mythology de-
veloped at Heliopolis, the creator Re-Atum produced land
from the surrounding waters. A mound in the temple was
known as the Ben-Ben and was supposed to represent the
semen of Re. Out of his own substances the creator god made
sky and earth, air and water, and finally the four divinities:
Osiris, Seth, and Isis and Nephthys, their wives.
The powerful priesthood at Heliopolis proclaimed the
pharaoh the son of the Sun. It seems likely that the earlier
pharaohs had themselves represented the Sun, and that they
lost power under the growing influence of the priesthood.
It was also possible for the priests to control the selection of
the pharaoh’s divine successor from among his offspring.
The history of ancient Egypt is neatly divided into the
Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, with two intervening pe-
riods of anarchy. After the first intermediate period, a new
royal house arose in the south, at Thebes. There, Re was
combined with a local god, Atum, the “Hidden One,” prob-
ably representing the air. This god flourished throughout the
New Kingdom, when Egyptian power spread into Asia. The
great temples at Karnak and Luxor testify to the power and
enormous wealth of the sun cult.
The sun was usually pictured as sailing across the sky
in a boat, with various attendants and sometimes with the
pharaoh himself. At other times the sun is seen sailing up the
leg and belly of the sky goddess, who bends over the earth
or straddles it in the form of a cow. Or the sun was swallowed
at night by the sky mother and is born each morning from
between her thighs. The sun was symbolized by a falcon but
more notably by the mythical phoenix, which alighted on the
Ben-Ben every five hundred years, was consumed in fire, and
rose again. Another important symbol of the sun was the
scarab, the dung beetle Khepri, which supposedly created it-
self by rolling its eggs in balls of dung. The obelisks, as well
as the gold-topped pyramids, point toward the sun. On the
early squat obelisk of the fifth dynasty, the sun is pictured
as creator of life and lord of the seasons.
In the reign of Amunhotep III (1417–1439 BCE), the
actual disk of the sun, called the Aton, began to appear as
a numinous symbol. It was the pharoah’s son Amunhotep
IV (1379–1362 BCE), however, who attempted, in one of the
great religious revolutions of history, to convert the entire
nation to monotheistic worship of the Aton as sole god.
Whether he was religiously motivated or whether he wished
to break the power of the enormously wealthy priesthood,
he sought to abolish all other worship in favor of the Aton,
the sun’s disk. He changed his name to Akhenaton (“Aton
is satisfied”) and built a new capital at Amarna. In this city
he supported a new school of art, which pictured him in nat-
uralistic style with his beautiful wife Nefertiti and his five
daughters, all under the brilliance of the sun, which reached
down to earth with long rays ending in human hands. Akhe-
naton has left a well-known hymn to the Aton as creator of
all the beauties of the world: “How manifold are your works.
They are mysterious in men’s sight, O sole incomparable
god, all powerful. You created the earth in solitude as your
heart desires. Men you created, and cattle, whatever is on
earth.” Akhenaton’s revolution failed, and after his mysteri-
ous death the priesthood reclaimed their power, and a young
man (probably his son-in-law) resumed the worship of
Amun, adopting the name of Tut-Ankh-Amun (or Tutankh-
amen).
MESOPOTAMIA. In the land between the Tigris and Euphra-
tes rivers, where are found the earliest traces of urban living,
writing, kingship, and an organized priesthood, the sun was
at first subordinate to the moon. To the first recorded inhab-
itants, known as the Sumerians, the chief god was An, a sky
god who had retired from active control and left the rule of
the universe to his son, Enlil, the Air. A son of Enlil was the
important moon god, Nanna, whose children were the
Sun—Utu—and the Evening Star—Inanna. In Sumerian
times, the regions were divided into a series of independent
cities, each devoted to the worship of a patron god. Only two
minor cities, Larsa and Sippar, worshiped Utu, the Sun.
The Semitic-speaking states that followed the Sumeri-
ans took over the religious organization they found, calling
the moon Sin and the sun Shamash. In that dangerously tor-
rid land, the sun was considered a baleful god. But since he
traveled continually across the sky, he was considered a spy
for the high gods and a stern judge of humankind. Travelers
prayed to him before setting out on a journey, and armies
before an expedition. He was thus a warrior god and leader
of armies. In the quest of the hero Gilgamesh for the secret
of immortality, it was the Sun who guided him on his jour-
ney. Originally the Sun walked across the heavens; in later
times he rode a cart drawn by onagers, wild asses from the
desert. Still later, the horse drew the Sun’s chariot. The Sun
in his chariot appeared in the morning at the eastern gate on
the Mountain of Sunrise, in the evening arrived at the
Mountain of Sunset, and then passed through to the under-
world. Because of his appearance in the underworld, the Sun
was sometimes pictured in company with Tammuz, the
Mesopotamian dying god, who dies and is reborn. There was
very little concern for judgment of the dead in Mesopotamia,
and Shamash’s character as judge was thus reserved for theSUN 8837