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Eye of Horus vs Eye of Ra: the difference, and how to tell them apart
19 October 2026
The difference in one line: the eye of Horus is the moon, an eye that was hurt and healed, so it stands for health and protection. The eye of Ra is the sun, and it acts as a fierce goddess the sun god sends out against his enemies: Hathor, Sekhmet the lioness, the cobra Wadjet.
The eye of Horus is the wedjat, the falcon god's eye that his rival Seth damaged and that was made whole again. Egyptian artists used the same wedjat drawing for both eyes, and some texts swap one for the other, so on an amulet the shape alone rarely settles it. A sun disk, a cobra or a lioness beside the eye points to Ra.
Horus's eye heals and Ra's eye attacks
Set side by side, the two eyes differ on almost every point except their drawing:
- Owner: Horus, the falcon god of kingship, against Ra, the sun god
- Sky: the moon against the sun
- Story: torn out by Seth and healed by Thoth, against sent out in anger and called home
- Power: healing, wholeness and protection, against fire, heat and punishment
- Takes the form of: an eye with falcon cheek markings, against a sun disk, a cobra or a lioness
- Usual side: the left eye, against the right eye, in later texts
The eye of Ra shines as the sun disk
In paintings and reliefs the eye of Ra is most often the yellow or red sun disk, often worn on a god's head. One or two cobras coil around it. The sign C2 draws Ra himself, seated, with a falcon's head under the disk, and his name is spelled with the disk alone, N5, read rꜥ, 'ra'.
In the tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens, Ra-Horakhty, the sun god merged with Horus of the horizon, appears with that disk and its cobra on his falcon head. The eye of Horus keeps the shape of an eye. The wedjat sign, D10, adds a falcon's cheek markings under a human eye and brow.
Left and right are a modern shortcut
Pendants and tattoo designs often come with a rule: the right eye is Ra's and the left is Horus's. The rule has an ancient root. Some texts make the sun the right eye and the moon the left eye of Ra-Horakhty, and reference works describe the eye of Ra as usually a right wedjat, paired with a left eye of Horus.
Sellers disagree on what 'right' means, though. For some it is the god's own right eye, for others any eye that points to the right. The early history is unsettled as well. Rolf Krauss argues that the eye of Horus first stood for something other than the moon and gained its lunar meaning later.
The eye of Ra runs away as a lioness
The eye of Ra often acts on its own, as the sun god's daughter. In the myth of the Distant Goddess the eye quarrels with Ra and leaves Egypt. She roams the deserts of Nubia, or in some versions Libya or Punt, as a raging lioness. A god goes to bring her home. In different tellings Thoth wins her over with talk and stories, Shu searches for Tefnut, and Onuris searches for Mehit.
In the story of the departure of Hathor-Tefnut out of Nubia, the angry eye leaves as Tefnut in lion form. Ra recalls her, and she comes back as the gentle Hathor. Her homecoming was linked with the Nile flood and the new year, and temples of the Ptolemaic and Roman age celebrated it. At Medamud, near Luxor, the homecoming of the goddess Raet-Tawy came with drinking and dancing.
The cobra on the king's brow is the eye of Ra
In a creation myth the creator sent his eye out to find his lost children, Shu and Tefnut. It came back with them and found a new eye grown in its place. To calm its fury he set it on his brow as a cobra. Tears shed in the story became the first people, the creator's in some tellings and the angry eye's in others.
The cobra on the brow is the uraeus, in Egyptian jꜥrt (iaret), from a verb meaning to rise. It was the goddess Wadjet, believed to spit fire at enemies, and kings wore it on the forehead. The erect cobra sign, I12, is the determinative for goddesses and for the uraeus.
A solid gold uraeus with a lapis lazuli head and eyes of black granite, found by Flinders Petrie in 1920 at the pyramid of Senusret II at Lahun, is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Both eyes share one Egyptian word
The Egyptian word for eye is jrt, said 'iret'. The plain eye, D4, writes it, and the same sign writes jrj, 'to do, to make'. Geraldine Pinch suggests the likeness of the two words helped turn the eyes of gods into beings that act for themselves.
'Eye of Ra' is jrt rꜥ: the eye, then the sun god's name with the disk N5. The wedjat, D10, writes another word, wḏꜣt, 'the sound one'. Texts give that name to both eyes, and Wedjat was also a name of the goddess.
Clues around an eye name its owner
Look first for the sun. A disk above or around the eye, or a cobra wrapped round a disk, belongs to Ra. Then look for an animal. A lioness head or a rearing cobra beside the eye points to the solar eye goddess.
A wedjat on its own, as a bead or a ring bezel, was the everyday protective eye. Some wedjat amulets carry a goddess on the other side, which John Darnell takes as an allusion to the tie between the two eyes.
Draw the eye you have seen on the pad and compare the answers for the plain eye, D4, and the wedjat, D10.
Questions
What is the difference between the eye of Horus and the eye of Ra?
The eye of Horus is the moon, the eye that was torn out and healed, and it stands for health and protection. The eye of Ra is the sun, and it acts as a fierce goddess, such as Sekhmet or Wadjet, who attacks the sun god's enemies.
Is the eye of Ra the right eye or the left eye?
Usually the right. Some texts make the sun the right eye and the moon the left eye of the sky god, so a right wedjat is often read as the eye of Ra and a left one as the eye of Horus. Ancient amulets face both ways, though.
Is the eye of Ra a goddess?
Yes, and many goddesses could take the role, among them Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet, Tefnut, Mut and Wadjet. Texts make the eye Ra's mother, sister, consort and daughter in turn.
Is the all-seeing eye on the dollar the eye of Ra?
The eye in a triangle comes from Christian painting of the late Renaissance, where the triangle stood for the Trinity. The Great Seal of the United States took it up in 1782, and Freemasons used it from 1797.
Should an eye of Horus tattoo face left or right?
Either matches Egyptian practice, since wedjat amulets were made facing both ways. A sun disk or a cobra added to the design makes it read as the eye of Ra.
Glossary
- amulet
- A small charm worn by the living or wrapped with a mummy for protection, often shaped like a sign such as the ankh or the scarab.
- determinative
- A sign at the end of a word that is not read aloud. It shows what kind of thing the word means, such as a seated man for men and their jobs.
- inundation
- The Nile's yearly flood, from about July to October. It left fertile black silt on the fields, and Egyptians called its season Akhet.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- relief
- A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Tomb of Nefertari (QV66) monument
- Valley of the Queens site
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo museum
Sources
- Eye of Ra (Wikipedia, with its references: Pinch, Wilkinson, Darnell, Troy, Goebs, Krauss)
- Eye of Horus (Wikipedia, with its references)
- The distant goddess, Hathor-Tefnut out of Nubia (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
- Uraeus of Senusret II, Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 46694 (Egypt Museum)
- Eye of Providence (Wikipedia, with its references)
More to read
- The sun disc: Ra in names and words Ra in hieroglyphs is the sun disc, a circle with a dot, read rꜥ. How it writes the god, the word day, son of Ra and the throne names of Egypt's kings.
- Osiris's name in hieroglyphs: the throne and the eye How to write Osiris in hieroglyphics: the throne and eye that spell wsjr, his titles Wennefer and lord of Abydos, and where to read his name in Egypt.
- The ankh: what the sign of life really means Ankh meaning: the Egyptian sign of life, what object it pictures, how it is read in words and names, and where to see gods holding it.