I love Egypt. The
mysterious pyramids, the pharaohs, Cleopatra, the gods, the goddesses, hieroglyphs,
the biblical Moses story, the mummies, the Nile…the list goes on and on. Oh,
and they also have an incredible dragon myth. For those of you that didn’t know
that, let me introduce you to Apep, the greatest enemy of the sun god, Ra.
In Egyptian
mythology, Apep is a serpent dragon and the chief demon god of the underworld.
Every night when the sun sets, Ra would have to travel through the underworld
in order to bring back the sun the next morning. Apep would be waiting to
destroy him. Of course, Ra, with the help of his lesser god and goddess buddies
would always emerge victorious, slaying the dragon Apep, who would inevitably come
back to life to battle Ra again the next day.
Apep became part
of Egytpian mythology in the middle part of the pharaoh dynasties, replacing
the demon-god Set as lord of the underworld, the leader of demonic armies and the
bad ass icon of all things evil. At that point, Set joined forces with Ra and Apep
became supreme god. But the trio of Ra, Set and Isis wanted to share that power
with him. He refused, so they attacked. When they cast him into the underworld,
he made it his mission to destroy Ra. Luckily for us; he hasn’t been able to…yet.
Apep used many
weapons to battle Ra. The cold darkness of the underworld was his first choice,
but there were more tricks up his sleeve than that. He also used sandstorms,
thunderstorms and earthquakes to steal the light from the sky. Probably the
most stunning of his weapons was his use of solar eclipse to bring darkness to
the world of humans. In this case Ra would call upon his own minions to save
him, such as Bast, Isis and Horus. They would use swords to cut the serpent to
pieces and free the life giving sun from eternal hell.
The people of
Egypt also helped Ra. They would hold a ritual called Banishing Apep and other
spells from the Book of Apophis to protect themselves from his wrath and bless
their main god. Ra’s priests and worshippers would make an effigy of Apep and
destroy it to symbolically show their love for their god and to protect both
the living and the dead.
Apep was
depicted in hieroglyphs as a giant serpent and sometimes as a circular ball
that represented his evil eye. Usually he is shown being cut to pieces by a cat
with a knife. An all-powerful god, Apep could be temporarily defeated, but never
be totally destroyed. He always came back to life to bring the battle back to
Ra.
This great dragon-demon
was not just known to Egyptians. The ancient Greeks called him Apophis, In today’s
world, a near Earth asteroid bears his name. Apophis has a small chance of impacting our
planet in 2029 and again in 2036 and 2068. If it somehow does hit us, the
resulting explosion of dust it would fling into our atmosphere would surely
entrap Ra in darkness…for a time.
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