The Eye of Ra: The Greatest Destructive Power in Egyptian Mythology

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss the Eye of Ra: the most powerful force in Egyptian Mythology in terms of destructive power and the goddess from whose tears humanity was created. Let’s get into it. In the time of the Ancient Egyptians, the word for eye was ‘irt’, and it was a homophone for the word meaning ‘doing’ or ‘acting', quite appropriate as the eye served as the divine enforcer on many occasions, intervening in drastic fashion on behalf of the gods. As the word ‘irt’ was feminine, so too were the goddesses who personified the Eye of Ra, a complex entity. She was an aspect of Atum-Ra, the syncretic fusion of the creator god Atum and the sun god Ra, but she was also a goddess. As a goddess separate from Ra, she could operate independently, as was in the case when Atum sent her to find his children in the waters of Nun before the world was created. More often, though, when removed from Ra, she would manifest herself through another goddess, becoming a compound deity, which is what happened when she merged with Sekhmet to unleash destruction upon humanity. In this way, she was almost like an awesome weapon who possessed and worked through other goddesses, including: Tefnut, Bastet, Mut, Hathor, and Sekhmet. The Eye was depicted as a red sun disk. Portrayals of Ra usually have the sun disk positioned just above his head, and when goddesses fused with the Eye of Ra, they were often portrayed with a red sun disk just above their heads. Depending on the circumstances, the Eye was associated with a number of celestial objects, such as the morning star, the full moon, and of course, the sun. The eye of Ra, as well as the eyes of other deities, could be portrayed by the Wedjat eye, in appearance an amalgamation of a hawk eye and a human eye. The eye of Ra was both an aspect of Ra and a goddess who was Ra’s daughter and protector. Both fire and water were associated with the Eye: fire representing divine wrath and water representing the power of creation, an example of the latter being when her tears created humanity. Sometimes the destructive and creative aspects of the Eye were each thought of as a distinct eye: the eye of Ra representing the destructive power of the sun, and the eye of Atum representing creative power, the pupil symbolizing the womb from which gods and humans emerged. Watch the video for the rest!