Ra - Sun God, King of the Gods a falcon crowned with a sun disk or a man with a falcon's head
Ra was the God of the Sun. He sailed across the heavens in a boat called the
'Barque of Millions of Years'. At the end of each day Ra was thought to die and sailed on his night voyage through the Underworld, leaving the Moon to light the world above. The boat would sail through the twelve doors, representing the twelve hours of night-time. The next dawn, he was born again.
It was not always smooth sailing. During the day Ra had to fight his chief enemy, a snake called
Apep. He was helped by the other gods, such as Seth and Bastet.
The sun disk on Ra's head often has a cobra round it. A cobra appears on the forehead of Pharaohs, like Tutankhamun.
Ra was the greatest of the gods and he kept his power in his secret name, which only he knew. He had started to grow old, and sometimes he dribbled. Isis collected some of his saliva and made it into a snake. She hid the snake where Ra would walk. When Ra trod on it, it bit him, and Ra screamed in pain. All the gods gathered round, but none could heal him. Isis said "If you tell me your secret name, this will give me enough magic power to heal you." Ra didn't want to do this, but eventually the pain was so bad that he had to. Isis healed him, and ever since then she has the magic powers that Ra had.
Ra’s main enemy was the snake God Apep, also known Apophis. He was the God of Chaos. Apep tried to stop Ra during his night voyage. Bastet, Daughter of Ra, protected Ra from Apep. She was the Goddess of cats

Hathor - the Goddess of love, music, dance cow horns and sun disk on head
Sekhmet - the Goddess of the sun woman with lion's head
Hathor was the goddess of joy, motherhood, and love. She looked after all women. She was the goddess of music and dancing, as well. Dead women were identified with Hathor, as men were identified with Osiris. She has a sun disk on her head and cow horns. Sometimes she had cow's ears or was a whole cow.
But she had another side as well, as Sekhmet, the Eye of Ra, the destructive Sun Goddess. The Egyptians knew that the Sun brought life, but they also knew that the desert Sun could kill you.
Ra, the Sun God, was angry with mankind, because they laughed at him. He said that he'd send down his anger as Sekhmet, the Eye of
Ra. She went down to Earth, killing men, and drinking their blood. She started to frighten Ra, who only wanted to punish Mankind, not destroy them all. So he dyed some beer red, to look like blood. When Sekhmet saw the beer, she was thirsty for blood, so she drank it all, got drunk and went to sleep. When she woke up, Ra persuaded her to stop killing Mankind.
Hathor

Husband of Isis and Father of Horus
Osiris - God of the Dead dressed in white with crook and flail and white crown
Osiris is shown as a man with a beard wearing white mummy wrappings. His crown is the white crown of Upper Egypt surrounded by red feathers. His skin is green to represent vegetation. He holds the symbols of supreme power, the flail and crook. The crook is used by shepherds to catch their sheep. The flail is used in threshing, to separate the grains from the outer husks. Osiris was the God of the Dead. You would expect that such a god would be gloomy or even evil, but the Egyptians thought about death a lot. They mummified their dead and buried them with their belongings so they could enjoy themselves in the afterlife.
Osiris ruled over the Egyptians and taught them farming. His brother Seth had always hated him, and wanted to kill him. Seth made a beautiful box, like a coffin, made to the exact measurements of Osiris. Then Seth invited Osiris and other people to a great feast. When everyone had finished eating, Seth displayed the box, and said that he'd give it to anyone who fit inside. Everyone tried, but only Osiris fitted. While he was still inside, Seth and his friends quickly slammed on the lid and threw the box in the Nile River

Son of Isis and Osiris
Horus - Son of Osiris a hawk, or a man with a hawk's head crowned with the crown of all Egypt
Horus is shown as a hawk, or a man with a hawk's head and the crown of all Egypt. This makes him look similar to Ra, but Ra is crowned with the sun disk. Horus' crown is made of two parts.
The white part is the crown of Upper Egypt (in the south) and the red part is the crown of Lower
Egypt (including the Nile delta). Together they show that Horus ruled all
Egypt. During their reign, Pharaohs identified themselves with Horus. After they died, they became Osiris.
When Horus was a baby, his father Osiris was killed by Seth. Horus and his mother Isis hid in the papyrus reeds in the delta of the Nile until Horus grew up. The he went to war with Seth to get his father's crown and kingdom. The battles raged for a long time. Once Seth managed to blind Horus by taking out his eye and tearing it to bits, but Thoth, the God of Wisdom, managed to heal the eye. So how did the war end? See Isis's page.
The Eye of Horus, healed by Thoth, was an amulet, or magic charm. The
Ancient Egyptians also used it to describe fractions. The Egyptians sometimes had had two eye symbols, with the left eye being the Eye of Horus, symbolizing the moon, and the right eye being symbolizing the Eye of Ra, or the sun.

Husband of Ma'at
Thoth - God of Wisdom, Time, Writing and the Moon head of an ibis
Thoth invented hieroglyphs, the picture writing of Ancient Egypt.
He was the measurer of the earth and the counter of the stars, the keeper and recorder of all knowledge. The ibis is a bird rather like a stork, with long legs and a long beak which it uses for prodding in the mud to find small fish. It was a symbol of wisdom and learning because it has a beak shaped like a pen which it dips in the mud, as if it was ink.
The Book of Thoth had two spells in it. If you read the first spell aloud, you would be able to understand every beast and bird, and summon the fishes in the sea. If you read the second spell, you could bring the dead to life.
Prince Stena, the son of a Pharaoh, knew the book was hidden in a royal tomb in the City of the
Dead. With his brother Anhurerau, he broke into the tomb of Neferkeptah. When they found the burial chamber, they saw the mummy of Neferkaptah, and his wife and young son. The wife spoke to them, and warned them against taking the book of Thoth. She said that her husband had stolen the Book from Thoth, and had read the spells, but Thoth was angry and had drowned her and her son in the Nile, and Neferkeptah had then killed himself. But Setna ignored her and moved towards the Book. The mummy of Neferkaptah sat up and said "Play me at four games of draughts. If you win, you can take the Book."
Setna was terrified, but agreed. He played the first game, and lost. He started to sink into the ground, up to his ankles. Then he lost the next game, and sunk up to his hips. As he was losing the third game, he shouted to his brother, "Run and fetch my magic amulets. Only they can save me!" He then sank into the ground up to his chin. His brother ran out of the tomb. Setna played the fourth game as slowly as he could, trying desperately not to lose, but the mummy was too good at draughts. Just as he had nearly lost for the final time, his brother Anhurerau returned with the amulets, and put them on Setna's head. The spell was broken, and
Setna grabbed the Book of Thoth, and ran as hard as he could out of the tomb.
As Setna tried to read the Book, he saw a beautiful woman walking past.

He fell in love with her, and tried to persuade her to marry him. She demanded that he kill his existing wife and children. Completely besotted with her, he agreed. When he had done this, she vanished, and he was appalled at what he had done. But he discovered that it was all a dream. He realised that he was being punished for stealing the Book of Thoth, and next time it might not be a dream, so he returned the Book to the tomb of Neferkeptah and resealed the burial chamber. Ever since then, no-one has seen the Book of Thoth.

Wife of Thoth
Ma'at - Goddess of Justice ostrich feather in her hair
Ma'at was the goddess of truth, justice and harmony. She was the wife of Thoth, the god of wisdom, since you need wisdom to find truth and justice. Both Ma'at and
Thoth helped at the Weighing of the
Heart.
The feather of Ma'at was an ostrich plume. She wore it on her head. The chief judge in charge of the Egyptian law courts was known as the "priest of Ma'at". He began court hearings by wearing the feather of Ma'at. The judge gave the feather to the person who won his case in the law courts.
The pharaoh had to promise that he would follow Ma'at. This means that he would be a just pharaoh, and keep order in Egypt.

Anubis - God of Embalming head of jackal
Anubis invented embalming to embalm Osiris, the first mummy. He was the guide of the dead.
The Egyptians embalmed their dead, especially their pharaohs, to preserve them, since they thought that this helped them live forever.
The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, you travelled to the Hall of the Dead. There
Anubis weighed your heart against the feather of Ma'at. Ma'at, the goddess of justice sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is carried out properly. You can see Anubis steadying the scales to make the weighing fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather, you lived for ever. We still talk of "a heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If your heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the Destroyer.
Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus. These were all frightening animals for the Egyptians. Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, stands by to record what happens.