While writing the novel “Bloodline”, considerable research was done in order to understand the pantheon of gods of Egyptian antiquity. The main character of the novel is Bastet, goddess of fertility and a protector of Ra, king of the gods. Bastet is also Ra’s daughter. And even though the novel is a murder mystery, there is a facet to the story which delves into the close relationship that existed between Bastet and Ra.
Ra was the sun god of ancient Egypt, worshipped for over 3,000 years. Egyptians didn’t just believe Ra ruled the sun. They believed he was the sun. He was usually shown as a falcon-headed man with a sun disk, or sometimes as just the disk itself.
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His cult began at Heliopolis, where priests said Ra emerged from the primordial waters to create the world. Each day he traveled across the sky in a river barge called the Mandjet, bringing light and life. Each night he sailed through the underworld of Duat upon the Ur-Nile, nightly battling the chaos serpent, Apophis. If Ra won, dawn came again. That daily cycle made him the god of creation, order, and renewal. This daily cycle plays a pivotal role in the novel.
To show his different phases, Egyptians gave him three forms. At sunrise he was Khepri, the scarab beetle pushing the sun up. At noon he was Ra, a falcon-headed man wearing a solar disk and cobra. At sunset he was Atum, the old man entering the night. He also had a secret name, which gave him his power, and if anyone discovered it, they could “undo” Ra as a divine entity.
Ra’s power was so important that other gods merged with him instead of replacing him. He became Amun-Ra in Thebes, king of the gods. He fused with Horus as Ra-Horakhty. Pharaohs called themselves “Son of Ra” and built obelisks and sun temples to connect with him. To Egyptians, kingship itself came from Ra.
As empires rose and fell, the myths about Ra evolved with the times. Even when Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to worship only the Aten, the sun’s disk, it was still Ra’s aspect. After that, Ra returned to prominence as part of Amun-Ra.
Ra mattered because he was practical. He marked time for farming, gave legitimacy to rulers, and offered hope for the afterlife. To travel with Ra through the night and be reborn at dawn became the model for the Egyptian journey after death.
In short, Ra was Egypt’s engine. Light, order, and rebirth all depended on his daily voyage.
“Bloodline” is in the final editing stages. Release date is December, 2026. If you would like a free epub version of the final cut, please DM me. Those who do, will also receive a paperback version signed by the author upon its release.
