Egyptian Legendary Creatures - Sphinx, Apep, Petsuchos, Great Sphinx of Giza, Griffin, Three-Legged Bird, Sha, Uraeus, El Naddaha, Bennu (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Sphinx, Apep, Petsuchos, Great Sphinx of Giza, Griffin, Three-Legged Bird, Sha, Uraeus, El Naddaha, Bennu, Index of Egyptian Mythology Articles, Serpopard, Hieracosphinx. Excerpt: Apep Part of a series on Ancient Egyptian religion In Egyptian mythology, Apep (also spelled Apepi, and Aapep, or Apophis in Greek ) was an evil god, the deification of darkness and chaos (isfet in Egyptian), and thus opponent of light and Ma'at (order/truth ), whose existence was believed from the Middle Kingdom onwards. His name is reconstructed by Egyptologists as * A p p because of written 3pp(y), surviving into later Coptic as Aph ph . Development Apep in hieroglyphs Apep formed part of the more complex cosmic system resulting from the identification of Ra as Atum, i.e. the creation of Atum-Ra, and the subsequent merging of the Ogdoad and Ennead systems. Consequently, since Atum-Ra, who was later referred to simply as Ra, was the solar deity, bringer of light, and thus the upholder of Ma'at, Apep was viewed as the greatest enemy of Ra, and thus was given the title Enemy of Ra . As the personification of all that was evil, Apep was seen as a giant snake /serpent, crocodile, or occasionally as a dragon in later years, leading to such titles as Serpent from the Nile and Evil Lizard . Some elaborations even said that he stretched 16 yards in length and had a head made of flint . It is to be noted that already on a Naqada I (ca. 4000 BCE) iware bowl (now in Cairo) a snake was painted on the inside rim combined with other desert and aquatic animals as a possible enemy of a (solar?) deity who is invisibly hunting in a big rowing vessel. Also, comparable hostile snakes as enemies of the sun god existed under other names (in the Pyramid Texts and Coffin...