As the enemy of the sun god, Ra, he was a malevolent force that could never be completely defeated. Every night, as the sun traveled through the underworld (or across the sky), his roar filled the air and launched his attack. Although believed to have existed since the earliest times, Apophis is not mentioned by name until the Middle Kingdom. He may have been born out of the chaos and uncertainty caused by the end of the Old Kingdom.
However, some experts have questioned whether the First Intermediate Period was actually a dark age, and it is also possible that the depictions of large snakes on pottery may be related to him. There are a number of snake gods or demons that appear in early texts (such as the Pyramid Texts) as representatives of evil or chaos.
However, the mythology surrounding it developed largely during the New Kingdom, in funerary texts such as the Duat (or Amduat). During the Roman period, he was sometimes called “the one who was spat out” and was considered to have been born from the saliva of the goddess Neith. According to one myth, Apep would hypnotize the sun god and all his followers, except Set, who would reject the serpent by piercing its side with a large spear.
In some texts, Apophis would trap the boat of the god Ra in his enormous coils (known as sandbanks) or cause the waters of the underworld to flood it to overwhelm him. In other texts, Apophis was equated with Set (who, after all, was a god of chaos) and an army of major and minor gods and goddesses (including Isis, Neith, Serqet, Geb, Aker, and the followers of Horus) would defend him.
Apophis would swallow the sun god Ra, but they would cut a hole in the serpent’s belly to allow the sun god to escape. If they failed, the world would sink into darkness. Like Set, Apophis was associated with various natural disasters, such as unexplained darkness and gloom, storms, solar eclipses, and earthquakes.
The god Set and Apophis were related to the northern sky and were sometimes allied with the goddess Taweret, a demon goddess. However, Apophis was constantly the force of evil and had no reason, unlike Set, who was only jealous and envious of other gods.
1. Development
Apophis was characterized by his giant serpent form and was given the titles of serpent of the Nile River and dragon of evil. Some accounts said that he was 16 yards long and had a head made of flint.
In Egyptian art, Apophis is depicted in paintings as a snake with a wide variety of allied animals from the desert and aquatic areas prepared for battle against a deity, probably a sun god. While in most texts Apophis is described as a giant snake, he is sometimes described as a crocodile.
The few descriptions of Apophis’ origin in myth generally show that he was born after Ra, usually from his umbilical cord. Combined with his absence from Egyptian creation myths, this has been interpreted as a suggestion that Apophis was not a primordial force in Egyptian theology, but rather a consequence of Ra’s birth. This suggests that evil in Egyptian theology is the consequence of an individual’s own struggles against non-existence.
2. Apophis’ battles against Ra
The sun god Ra, in the form of a Great Cat, kills the serpent Apophis. The tales of Apophis’ battles against Ra were elaborated during the New Kingdom. Storytellers said that every day Apophis must be just below the horizon. This appropriately made him part of the underworld. In some stories, Apophis lay in wait for Ra on the western mountain called Bakhu, where the sun set; other legends say that Apophis watched at the precise moment before sunrise.
The wide range of possible locations for Apophis earned him the title of “seeker of worlds.” His terrifying roar was thought to make the underworld rumble. Myths say that Apophis was imprisoned in that place because he had taken the place of the chief god before being overthrown by the god Ra, or because he was evil and had been imprisoned.
The Coffin Texts suggest that Apophis used a magical gaze that would harass the god Ra and his servants. Ra was assisted by several defenders who traveled with him, including Set and possibly the Eye of Ra. It was speculated that Apophis’ ideologies caused the earth to shake, and his fights against the god Set would usher in storms and torrential rains. In one account, Ra himself defeats Apophis in the form of a cat. The few accounts of Apophis’ origin generally describe him as being born from Ra’s umbilical cord.
3. Worship
It was believed that Ra’s victory each night was assured by the prayers of Egyptian priests and worshippers in temples. The Egyptians practiced a series of rituals and superstitions that were thought to ward off Apophis and help Ra continue his journey across the sky.
In a ritual performed every year, called “The Banishment of Chaos,” priests would build an image of Apophis, which was believed to immobilize the darkness and all evil in Egypt, and burn it to protect all people from the evil caused by Apophis for that year.
Legends about payments to the god Ra also had rules and mandates for constructing statuettes of bitumen or small drawings of the serpent representing Apophis, which would be thrown away, cut up, and burned while reciting elaborate verses that would exterminate Apophis. Fearing that even the image of Apophis could give power to the demon, any representation always included another deity to subdue the monster.
Since Apophis was believed to coexist within the underworld, it was sometimes speculated that he was a voracious consumer of souls. Thus, the dead also needed protection, so they were buried while reciting incantations to destroy and bring downApophis. The Book of the Dead does not often describe the occasions when Ra defeated the serpent of chaos explicitly called Apophis.
