The Journey of the Sun God Amun-Re

A Wall painting from the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) depicting the the journey of the sun god Amun-Re in his ram-headed form, standing in his solar barque, detail from the ‘Book of Gates’.

The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. It narrates the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world, corresponding to the journey of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the night.

Re, the personification of the sun, is one of the oldest and most important deities of ancient Egyptian culture: in mythology, after being given birth by the goddess of the sky Nut, Re crossed the sky every day with his boat, while in the evening he was eaten by his mother and thus returned to her body to be born again the next morning.

Depending on the different hours of the day, Re was worshipped in different forms: he was the Khepri beetle at dawn, the Horakhty falcon ‪at noon‬ and the ram or the old man Atum at sunset.

New Kingdom,19th Dynasty, reign of Seti I, ca. 1292-1279 BC. Tomb of Seti I (KV17), Valley of the Kings, West Thebes.