Khepri ( Egyptian: ''ḫprj,'' also transliterated Khepera, Kheper, Khepra, Chepri) is a scarab-faced god in ancient Egyptian religion who represents the rising or morning sun. By extension, he can also represent creation and the renewal of life.van Ryneveld, Maria M. ''The Presence and Significance of Khepri in Egyptian Religion and Art'', University of Pretoria (South Africa), Ann Arbor, 1992''. .

Symbolism

Khepri (''ḫprj'') is derived from the

Egyptian language The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...

verb ''ḫpr,'' meaning to "develop", "come into being", or "create".Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). ''The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson. pp. 230–233 The god was connected to and often depicted as a scarab beetle (''ḫprr'' in Egyptian). Young dung beetles, having been laid as eggs within the dung ball, emerge from it fully formed and thus were considered to have been created from nothingness.Liszka, Kate. “Scarab Amulets in the Egyptian Collection of the Princeton University Art Museum.” ''Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University'', vol. 74, 2015, pp. 4–19. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/26388759. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020. Egyptians believed that each day the sun was also reborn or created from nothing. In the same way that the beetle pushes large balls of dung along the ground, Khepri moved the newly-born sun across the sky. Khepri was a solar deity and thus connected to the rising sun and the mythical creation of the world. The god and the scarab beetle represent creation and rebirth.

Religion

There was no

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

devoted to Khepri, and he was largely subordinate to the greater sun god Ra. The sun god was however included in the creationist theory of Heliopolis and later Thebes. Often, Khepri and another solar deity,

Atum Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Name Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to co ...

, were seen as aspects of Ra: Khepri was the morning sun, Ra was the midday sun, and Atum was the sun in the evening. As a deity, Khepri's four main functions were creator, protector, sun-god, and the god of resurrection. The central belief surrounding Khepri was the god's ability to renew life, in the same way he restored the sun's existence every morning. Mummified scarab beetles and scarab amulets have been found in Pre-dynastic graves, indicating that Khepri was respected early on in the history of Ancient Egypt.

Appearance

Ra-Khepri_(solar_disc_and_scarab_beetle)

Khepri was principally depicted as a scarab beetle, though in some tomb paintings and funerary papyri he is represented as a human male with a scarab as a head, or as a scarab with a male human head emerging from the beetle's shell. He is also depicted as a scarab in a solar barque held aloft by Nun. The scarab amulets that the Egyptians used as jewelry and as

seals Seals may refer to: * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impress an emblem, used as a means of a ...

allude to Khepri and the newborn sun. The beetle carvings became so common that excavators find them throughout the Mediterranean. Ancient_Egyptian_Scarabs

Etymology

The name "Khepri" appears most often in the

Pyramid texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterran ...

and usually has the scarab hieroglyph as a determinative or

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by famili ...

. Khepri (''ḫprj'') can also be spelled "''Kheper''", which is the Egyptian term used to denote the sun god, the scarab beetle, and the verb "''to come into existence''". Kheper could also stand for "''to change''", "''to happen''" etc.

Origin

It is thought that Khepri came into existence in the same manner as a young scarab beetle emerges from its dung ball fully formed. Ancient Egyptians used to think, the beetles express the sun's motion by rolling their feces on the sand, which is why the sun god Khepri is associated with this particular species of beetle. Khepri was considered below the sun god Ra in rank, so no shrine was built for him. Another sun-god

and Khepri are often considered to be part of Ra. As stated in The

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ( ...

, Khepri was also sometimes believed to be a part of Atum.

References

External links

{{Authority control Animal gods Egyptian gods Solar gods Creator gods Life-death-rebirth gods Stellar gods Mythological insects Beetles and humans Ra Personifications Insects in religion Beetles