Ancient Egyptian Gods Gallery

Re

The god Re was identified as the sun, and was most often depicted as the sun's disk itself, or as a falcon-headed man wearing a sun-disk on his head. His chief cult centre was at Iunu, often referred to under its Greek name Heliopolis (City of the Sun).

Here Re manifested himself in several other forms: as Atum, the evening sun; as Khepri, the morning sun, depicted as a scarabaeus or dung-beetle; and as Horakhty, most famously represented by the Great Sphinx at Giza.

Re was head of a group of nine gods, who are known jointly as the Great Ennead, and was the supreme judge of the dead. He was closely connected with the king, who for much of Egyptian history was known as the 'son of Re'.