Legends Library

Egyptian Legends

Ra's Journey Through the Egyptian Underworld (The Duat)

Each night, Ra sailed through the twelve hours of the Duat, battling the chaos serpent Apep, uniting with Osiris, and emerging reborn at dawn.

In the Egyptian imagination, the night was not a quiet thing. It was a long, dangerous voyage through the twelve hours of the underworld, an ocean of darkness filled with serpents, demons, and the souls of the dead, all of it illuminated by the dim red light of the setting sun. The Egyptians called this underworld the Duat (Egyptian DwAt, “the night boat” or “the place of night”), and they believed that the sun god Ra passed through it every night, battling the forces of chaos and emerging reborn at dawn.

This nightly journey was the central drama of Egyptian religion. The great New Kingdom pharaohs, who wished to be associated with Ra in the afterlife, had the walls of their tombs painted with detailed maps and vignettes of the Duat, sometimes covering the entire tomb in scenes of the sun god’s passage. The most important of these texts are the Amduat (“That Which Is in the Underworld”), the Book of Gates, and the Book of Caverns, each of which describes a slightly different vision of the night journey.

The Solar Barque Mesektet

As the sun set on the western horizon, Ra was swallowed by the sky goddess Nut and entered the underworld. He left behind the bright barque called the Mandjet in which he had crossed the sky, and boarded a different vessel called the Mesektet, the “Night Barque.” The Mesektet was often depicted as a long, narrow boat with a serpent at the prow and another at the stern, both of them called Mehen — the protective serpent who wrapped his coils around the boat to defend it from the attacks of Apep.

Ra did not sail the Mesektet alone. He was accompanied by a host of divine companions, including:

  • Sia, the goddess of perception, who saw the way
  • Hu, the god of authoritative speech, who called out the names of the gatekeepers
  • Heh, the god of infinity, who measured the hours
  • The souls of the justified dead, who had been transformed into imperishable stars and were given places in the solar barque

This crew was the crew of millions mentioned in the funerary texts, the army of gods and the dead who accompanied the sun through the night. The concept of being taken into this crew — being given a place on the solar barque — was one of the highest aspirations of the Egyptian afterlife.

The Twelve Hours of the Night

The Duat was divided into twelve hours, each one corresponding to a different region of the night. The structure of the journey is described in detail in the Amduat (“That Which Is in the Underworld”), a text composed in the New Kingdom for the pharaohs of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties, and painted on the walls of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

The first hour began at sunset, in the westernmost region of the underworld, called Rostau. Here the sun entered the body of Nut, and the boat of Ra was towed by the gods of the eastern horizon into the first cavern. The first hour was dominated by Osiris, the ruler of the underworld, who was sometimes seen as the dead sun, the sun that had gone down at the western horizon and was now lying in the darkness of the earth.

Through the second, third, and fourth hours, Ra passed through caverns inhabited by the souls of the dead, who were arrayed in long processions. The texts give the names of these souls: “the gods of the west,” “the imperishable stars,” “the great ones of Rostau.” Many of them held knives and torches, lighting the way for the sun.

In the fifth and sixth hours, the dangers began. The sun encountered demons, serpents, and the guardians of the caverns. The most dangerous of these was the great serpent Apep (also Apophis), who lay coiled at the deepest point of the underworld, waiting for the chance to devour the solar barque.

The seventh hour was the most dangerous of all. Here Ra confronted Apep in direct combat, and the forces of the sun god had to use all their magical weapons to defeat the chaos serpent. The texts describe Ra being transformed into a great cat to strike at Apep, or the goddess Serqet binding the serpent with chains of light.

In the eighth and ninth hours, the sun continued westward, now deeper into the body of Nut. The caverns here were inhabited by the souls of those who had died violent deaths, and the deities who ruled them were the most dangerous of the underworld.

The tenth and eleventh hours saw the sun approaching the deepest point of the night. The waters of the underworld were now lower, the boat of Ra was towed by the gods of the eastern horizon, and the journey was preparing for the great event of the night.

The twelfth hour was the hour of rebirth. At the deepest point of the underworld, Ra met the dead Osiris and united with him. The two gods — the dead sun and the dead king — became one, and from this union Ra was reborn. He emerged from the body of Nut at the eastern horizon as a child, the new sun, and the cycle began again.

The Battle with Apep

The most dramatic event of the night was the battle with Apep. Apep was the great serpent of chaos, the embodiment of all that opposed the sun. He was said to be 16 cubits long (about 26 feet), and he was made of sand, fire, and darkness. He coiled himself across the path of the solar barque, and when Ra passed, he tried to devour the boat and the sun.

The battle with Apep was a daily event. According to the spells preserved in the Book of Apep and in several New Kingdom papyri, the gods of the sun’s crew fought the serpent with magical weapons. Sia struck at him with her perception. Hu shouted the words of power. The children of Horus — the four sons of Horus who protected the canopic jars — emerged from the boat to attack. The goddess Serqet stung him with her scorpion-tail. Even the dead pharaoh was called upon to wield the harpoon and pierce the serpent’s head.

When Apep was defeated, his body was burned. The Egyptians were so eager to help Ra in this battle that they performed daily rituals in the temples, where priests burned wax effigies of the serpent, recited the spells of the Book of Apep, and spat on the images. Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the fifth century BCE, described the ritual in his Histories and noted that the priests of Heliopolis were forbidden to wear wool or to shave their bodies, in purity for the great work of defeating chaos.

The Union of Ra and Osiris

In the deepest hour of the night, in the twelfth hour, the most important event of the entire journey took place. The sun god Ra, sailing through the underworld, met the dead god Osiris, who lay upon his throne at the deepest point of the earth. The two gods united.

The theological meaning of this union was profound. Ra was the sun in the sky, the life-giver, the king of the gods. Osiris was the dead king, the ruler of the underworld, the one who had been murdered and resurrected. Together, they represented the two halves of the Egyptian concept of the divine: the daily rebirth of the sun and the eternal life of the dead king. By uniting with Osiris in the underworld, Ra took on the powers of the dead. By carrying the union back up to the sky at dawn, Osiris was given new life.

In some versions of the myth, this union produced a new god — Hemsut, the mysterious child of the two — who was the inheritor of both the solar and the underworld kingdoms. In other versions, the union was a ritual reaffirmation of the cosmic order, ensuring that both the sun and the dead would continue forever.

The image of the two gods together — Osiris enthroned in the deepest underworld, Ra sailing in the barque above him — became one of the most powerful images in Egyptian religion. It is preserved in the tomb of Ramesses VI, in the tomb of Seti I, and in countless New Kingdom papyri.

The Gods Who Aided Ra

Ra did not fight alone. Each hour of the night was guarded by a different set of divine beings, and each had a specific role in the defense of the sun barque. Some of the most important of these helpers were:

  • Mehen, the protective serpent, who wrapped his coils around the solar barque
  • The Gatekeepers, seven or twelve of them, who controlled the doors between the hours
  • The Children of Horus (Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef, Qebehsenuef), who guarded the four cardinal points
  • Sia and Hu, the divine pair who saw and spoke the way
  • Nekhbet and Wadjet, the vulture and the cobra, the tutelary goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt
  • Thoth, the moon god, who stood at the prow of the barque and called out the names of the gatekeepers
  • The Souls of the Justified Dead, the imperishable stars who had earned their place in the barque

This divine army was the most powerful in the Egyptian pantheon, and they accompanied Ra each night to ensure that the sun would rise again.

The Punishment of the Damned

The Duat was not a place of rest only. The Egyptians believed that the souls of the wicked were also punished in the underworld, and the New Kingdom funerary texts describe the tortures inflicted on the enemies of Ra. The most famous of these texts, the Book of Gates, contains vivid images of sinners bound to blocks of stone, of sinners with knives driven into their hearts, and of sinners hung upside down over the pits of fire.

The punishments were not eternal. The Egyptians had no concept of hell as a place of unending suffering. But the damned were destroyed each night, and their souls were not allowed to enter the solar barque. They were kept in the deepest pits of the Duat, where they suffered in darkness until the next dawn.

The Renewal of the Sun at Dawn

The climax of the journey was the renewal of the sun at dawn. As the twelfth hour ended, the solar barque emerged from the body of Nut at the eastern horizon. Ra, now a child, was greeted by the gods of the east, who were depicted as baboons (a reference to the baboon’s habit of chattering at sunrise, which the Egyptians interpreted as a greeting to the sun). The baboons, the scorpions, the vultures, and the cobras all raised their voices in joy at the rebirth of the sun.

The new sun was the scarab beetle, Khepri, who represented the rising sun. Khepri was the self-generated one, who emerged from his own body in the manner of the scarab pushing its ball of dung — a brilliant piece of theological imagery in which the small, dark beetle pushing its ball across the ground became the model for the sun god pushing himself out of the underworld each morning.

From the moment of emergence, the cycle began again. The sun climbed into the sky, the day was born, the Nile flowed, the crops grew, and the world of the living was renewed. But the journey was not over. The next night, the sun would set again, and Ra would have to make the journey all over.

The Symbolic Meaning for the Deceased

The journey of Ra through the Duat was the model for the journey of the deceased. The Egyptians believed that the soul, like the sun, would have to pass through the twelve hours of the night, face the dangers, and emerge reborn. To help the soul make this journey, the funerary texts contained spells, maps, and instructions for navigating the Duat.

The Amduat was originally composed for the pharaohs, and only the kings were allowed to use it. But in the New Kingdom, parts of the Amduat and the Book of Gates were copied for nobles, and eventually the more general Book of the Dead included shorter versions of the same spells for ordinary Egyptians.

The soul that made the journey successfully was said to “follow Ra” through the day, and to “join the crew of the sun barque” in the night. This was the highest aspiration of the Egyptian afterlife — to be united with the sun, to be renewed each day, to be given a place among the imperishable stars.

The Afterlife in the Image of the Sun

The Duat was not the only version of the Egyptian afterlife. The Egyptians also believed in the Field of Reeds (the Sekhet Iaru, “Field of Reeds”), a paradise reached through the judgment of Anubis and Osiris. But the Duat was the cosmic image — the night journey of the sun, the daily drama of order against chaos, the perpetual battle and perpetual triumph of light.

The idea of the sun’s nightly journey became one of the most enduring images in world mythology. It has been compared to the Norse Ragnarök, the Greek myth of Hades, and the Christian concept of Christ’s harrowing of hell. Each of these traditions has its own gods, its own demons, and its own version of the dark journey. The Egyptian version, the oldest and most elaborately developed, has been the model for the others.

Last reviewed: June 2026.