Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Dragons of Lore Series: Apep, Enemy of the Egyptian Sun God Ra


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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