Khepri: The Egyptian God of the Rising Sun

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. The topic of this video is Khepri, the god of the rising sun in Egyptian mythology, which, in certain traditions, connected him to the very first sunrise in the primordial past, the infant sun rising from the waters of Nun or from the primordial lotus.

As the sunrise personified, Khepri was depicted in many forms. The core of his appearance was the scarab beetle. He could be shown plainly as a beetle, as a beetle-headed hawk or vulture, or as a beetle-headed man, the man usually seated on a throne or aboard the boat on which the sun god made his way through the underworld each night. Some depictions even combined elements of all three, such as a man with the head of a beetle who also had wings for arms.

It is believed that Khepri was depicted as a scarab beetle because of the parallel between pushing dung balls and the movement of the sun. Just as beetles move dung balls around, so it was that Khepri moved the morning sun, but where beetles use their back legs, Khepri was depicted pushing the sun with his front legs, a subtle anthropomorphization: humans tend to use their hands as the point of contact when they push.

Watch the video for the rest!

Видео Khepri: The Egyptian God of the Rising Sun канала Mythology Explained