Khepri |
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In Egyptian mythology, the god Khepri was a solar deity representing the dawning sun.
Khepri was principally depicted as a scarab beetle, though in some tomb paintings and funerary papyri he is represented as a human male with a scarab as a head. He is also depicted as a scarab in a solar barque held aloft by Nun. When represented as a scarab beetle, he was typcially depicted pushing the sun (as the scarab pushes a dung ball) across the sky every day, as well as rolling it safely through the Egyptian underworld every night.
The Egyptians believed that scarab beetles were self-creating, emerging from dung, a substance they regarded as dead, inert matter. Because of this, Khepri was viewed as a creator god and a god of rebirth and renewal. Indeed, his name comes from the Egyptian word kheper, meaning "to come into being; to happen".
Because Khepri was thought to be self-created, he was associated with the creator god Atum, whom the Egyptians associated with the dying, setting sun that would be reborn again in the morning as Khepri. This view is particularly prevalent in the funerary literature of the New Kingdom, when many Ramesside tombs in the Valley of the Kings were decorated with depictions of the solar god Ra as a sun-disk containing images of Khepri, the dawning sun, and Atum (as a ram-headed man), the setting sun.
See also Ra.
Alternative forms of the name: Khepera, Kheper, Chepri, Khepra
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