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In Egyptian mythology,
Khepri (also spelt Khepera, Kheper, Chepri, Khepra) is the
name of a minor god. The origin of belief in Khepri lies in
the observation that Scarab beetles have a habit of pushing
large balls of dung around, and so some Egyptians came up
with the idea that the sun moved across the sky because it
was being pushed by such a beetle. Since Khepri was considered
to push the sun, he gradually came to embody aspects of the
sun itself, and therefore was a solar deity. To explain where
the sun goes at night, such pushing was extended to the underworld,
Khepri's pushing of the sun being ceaseless.
Since the scarab beetle lays its eggs in the bodies of various
dead animals, including other scarabs, and in dung, from which
they emerge having been born, the ancient Egyptians believed
that scarab beetles were created from dead matter. Because
of this, they also associated the Khepri with rebirth, renewal,
and resurrection. Indeed, his name (kheper in Egyptian) means
to come into being. As a result of this, when the rival cult
of the sun-god Ra gained significance,
Khepri was identified as the aspect of Ra which constitutes
only the dawning sun (i.e the sun when it comes into being).
Subsequently, when Ra and Atum
became identified as one another, Khepri, which was Ra's
young form, became conflated with Nefertum,
which was Atum's. This lead to a cosmogony
where Ra, as Khepri, a beetle, resulted
from the Ogdoad's activities, and
emerged from a (blue) lotus flower, only to immediately transform
into Nefertum, a youth, who, after growing up, masturbated
the Ennead into existance.
Khepri was principally depicted as a whole 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 typically depicted pushing the
sun across the sky every day, as well as rolling it safely
through the Egyptian underworld every night.
As an aspect of Ra, he 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 Ra as a sun-disc, containing
images of Khepri, the dawning sun, and Atum
(the setting sun aspect of Ra).
Gods and Goddesses
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