Apophis, the serpent of chaos and enemy of Ra in Egyptian myth

What is Apophis?

Apophis — Apep in Egyptian — is the great serpent of chaos in Egyptian mythology, the cosmic enemy the sun must defeat each night in order to be reborn. He is neither a god one prays to nor a creature with a life story: he is the personification of non-existence, that which preceded creation and forever threatens to drag the world back into it. Where Ra embodies luminous, cyclical order, Apophis embodies the nothingness that would swallow it whole.

A creature without birth or cult

Most Egyptian deities have a genealogy, a cult centre, festivals. Apophis has none of this. No temple is dedicated to him, no prayer is addressed to him. This absence is theologically deliberate: Apophis does not belong to the created, ordered world — he is its inverse. He was never “born” in the way Osiris or Horus were; he is the remnant of primeval chaos, the hostile Nun that the creator never shaped.

This nature explains his iconography: a colossal serpent, often many cubits long, shown coiled, bound, pierced with knives or beheaded — never at rest, always in the process of being destroyed.

The nightly battle against the solar barque

Apophis’s central role plays out in the Duat, the underworld the sun crosses during the twelve hours of night. Each evening the barque of Ra enters this realm for the journey that must return it to dawn. And each night, somewhere along the way — often at the seventh hour — Apophis rises to block the barque’s path, seeking to swallow it or to dry up the waters on which it sails.

The serpent wields a fearsome weapon: his hypnotic gaze, able to freeze the divine crew. To defeat him, Ra is surrounded by a host of defenders — Isis, Serqet, Bastet, and the souls of the justified dead — but foremost among them is Seth. Standing at the prow, Seth pierces Apophis with his spear, a striking image of divine chaos turned against absolute chaos. The nightly victory allows the sun to rise: the order of the world hangs on this endlessly renewed combat.

A defeat that never ends

What makes Apophis so distressing is that he is never killed for good. He is cut apart, burned, bound, his pieces scattered — and he regenerates to return the following night. The Egyptians read certain threatening phenomena — violent storms, eclipses, tempests darkening the sun — as moments when Apophis had nearly prevailed. The struggle against him therefore has no end: it is the perpetual price of cosmic continuity.

The rites of annihilating Apophis

To this repeated threat, Egypt responded with a set of execration rites among the most concrete in its religion. The chief text, the Book of Overthrowing Apophis (preserved notably in the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus), prescribes making figurines of wax or papyrus representing the serpent, then naming them, spitting on them, stabbing them, trampling them and burning them. In destroying the effigy, the priest ritually destroys chaos itself and lends his strength to Ra.

These ceremonies, performed in temples at the dangerous hours of the day and year, reveal a deep conviction: cosmic order is not a given but is actively defended, gesture by gesture, against a threat that never sleeps.

What the ancient sources say

Apophis appears as early as the Middle Kingdom in the Coffin Texts, then comes into full view in the New Kingdom. The funerary books of the afterlife — the Amduat, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns — describe and illustrate his battle against the solar barque, hour by hour, in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. The Book of Overthrowing Apophis, transmitted by the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (Late Period), provides the fullest collection of the formulas and rites for annihilating the serpent.

Further reading

For the solar god whom Apophis attacks each night, read the page on Ra. For the god who, at the barque’s prow, pierces the serpent, see the page on Seth. For the underworld where the nightly combat unfolds, see the page on the Duat. For an overview of the pantheon, browse the Egyptian mythology hub.