Apophis

Apophis emerges from the primordial waters of Nun in ancient Egyptian cosmogony, embodying the formless chaos prior to ordered creation by Atum-Ra. Texts such as the Pyramid Texts describe him as an eternal entity without defined form, opposed to the solar principle that establishes maat or cosmic order. His existence precedes the organized gods and represents the constant threat of universal dissolution.

Each night Apophis attacks Ra's solar boat during its journey through the underworld, attempting to plunge the light into eternal darkness. The god Set, in his role as defender, combats the serpent with spear and magic to ensure dawn. This repeated battle maintains the daily cycle and symbolizes the perpetual struggle between order and chaos in Egyptian mythology.

Apophis symbolizes the disordered forces that threaten universal balance, depicted as a gigantic limbless serpent to emphasize his formless and devouring nature. His ritual defeat in funerary texts ensures the continuity of the solar cycle and protects the deceased in the afterlife. This figure influenced later conceptions of cosmic evil in neighboring traditions.

The danger Apophis posed was so constant that the Egyptians developed a liturgy to fight it: the Book of Overthrowing Apep, preserved above all in the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus. Each day, in the temples, priests made figures of the serpent from wax and papyrus, then spat on, trampled, stabbed, and burned them, reciting spells that listed and annulled his secret names. Eclipses, storms, and murky waters were read as signs that Apophis had nearly prevailed. Unlike the pantheon's other enemies, he could never be destroyed for good: defeated each dawn, he was reborn each dusk, for he embodied the primordial chaos (isfet) that creation does not eliminate but merely contains. Funerary texts reproduced these spells to protect the deceased as well during their nightly journey through the Duat.