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The sun disc: Ra in names and words

20 October 2026

Ra is written with the sun disc N5, a circle with a dot in the middle, read rꜥ and said "ra". The same sign is the ordinary word for the sun, so the god's name and the sun look alike on the stone. A fuller spelling puts the mouth D21 for r and the forearm D36 for ꜥ in front of the disc, and a seated god can follow as a silent mark of the divine.

Kings carried the disc in their names for more than two thousand years. It sits at the top of the cartouches of Khafre, Menkaure, Thutmose III and Ramesses II, and in the title "son of Ra" in front of their birth names.

Ra has a short spelling and a long one

The short spelling is the disc alone, often with a single stroke Z1 beside or under it. The stroke marks the picture as meaning the thing it shows: the sun, and so the sun god. The long spelling writes the sounds first, r with the mouth and ꜥ with the forearm, and then the disc. Scribes used both forms from the Old Kingdom to the last temples of the Roman period.

The seated god A40 is the general determinative for gods. Ra also has a sign of his own, the falcon-headed god C2: a seated man with a falcon's head and the sun disc on it, which can stand for the whole name. Coptic, the last stage of Egyptian, wrote the word as rē, which is why older books call the god Re.

Sun Single stroke Mouth Forearm Seated god Ra, falcon-headed god

The disc also marks the day

Because rꜥ means the sun, the disc turns up in words for daylight and time. The word for day, hrw ("heru"), is spelled with the reed shelter O4 for h, the mouth D21 for r and the quail chick G43 for w, and closes with the sun disc. Coptic kept the word as hoou.

In dates the disc stands before a number to mean "day 23" of a month. The Palermo Stone, a royal annal of the Old Kingdom, already counts days this way. In set phrases rꜥ itself can mean "day", as in rꜥ nb, "every day", with the basket V30 for nb, "every".

Reed shelter Quail chick Basket

Djedefre made the king a son of Ra

The title sꜣ rꜥ, "son of Ra", is written with the pintail duck G39 for sꜣ, "son", and the sun disc. Its earliest known use is under Djedefre, Khufu's son and successor in the 4th Dynasty, whose own name ḏd.f-rꜥ, "he endures like Ra", also holds the god. Later kings put the title in front of the cartouche of their birth name.

Some birth names hold Ra at the start of the spoken name. Ramesses is rꜥ-ms-sw, "Ra is the one who bore him", and the disc comes first in sound as well as in writing. Three fox skins F31 write ms, and the folded cloth S29 and the sedge M23 spell sw, "him".

Pintail duck Three fox skins Folded cloth Sedge

Royal names put the sun at the top of the ring

Khafre is ḫꜥ.f-rꜥ, "he appears like Ra": the disc, the sun rising over a hill N28 for ḫꜥ, and the horned viper I9 for f. Menkaure is mn-kꜣw-rꜥ, "eternal are the kas of Ra", with the game board Y5 and three pairs of raised arms D28. Pepi II took the throne name nfr-kꜣ-rꜥ, Neferkare, "beautiful is the ka of Ra". Thutmose III was mn-ḫpr-rꜥ, Menkheperre, with the scarab L1, and Amenhotep III was nb-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ, Nebmaatre, with Maat C10 and the basket.

In all these cartouches the disc is carved at the top, or at the front of a ring lying on its side, yet Egyptologists read Ra at the end. Names of gods were often written first out of respect, a habit called honorific transposition. The Amarna letters, written in cuneiform, back that order for Amenhotep III: Babylonian scribes spelled Nebmaatre as Nimmureya, with Ra at the end. For a few names, Khafre's among them, scholars still argue over where the god was spoken.

Sun rising over a hill Horned viper Game board Raised arms Heart and windpipe Scarab beetle Goddess Maat

Build Menkheperre, the throne name of Thutmose III

Ra merged with the other great gods

Ra-Horakhty is rꜥ-ḥr-ꜣḫty, "Ra, Horus of the two horizons", the rising sun with a falcon's head. His name adds the falcon G5 for Horus and the horizon N27, the sun between two hills. At Abu Simbel his statue stands in a niche over the entrance of the great temple. He holds the user sign and the goddess Maat, and with the disc on his head the group spells Usermaatre, the throne name of Ramesses II.

At Heliopolis, Iunu, written with the column O28, Ra was joined to Atum as Ra-Atum, the setting sun, already in the Pyramid Texts. Atum's name uses the sledge U15 for tm. In the New Kingdom Amun of Thebes became Amun-Ra, the name written with Amun's three signs and the disc.

Falcon Sun between two mountains (horizon)Head and neck of a canine Column Sledge

Read how Amun is written

The eye of Ra is the sun at war

Myths give the sun god an eye that acts on its own, a daughter he sends out as the lioness Sekhmet or the cobra coiled around his disc. Art draws it with the same wedjat eye used for Horus, and the disc, cobra or lioness beside it shows which god it belongs to.

Erect cobra

Tell the eye of Ra from the eye of Horus

The sun disc is a circle with a dot

Draw a circle and put a dot or a very small circle in its centre. In a cartouche it sits at the top, above or beside the other signs. Painted texts often colour it red or yellow.

Draw the sun disc

Questions

Is the sun disc of Ra the same as the Aten?

The Aten, itn, is the visible disc of the sun. Its name is spelled with the reed leaf, the loaf and the water, with the sun disc after them as a silent determinative. Akhenaten raised it above Ra and every other god.

Is it Ra or Re?

Both are modern ways of voicing rꜥ. Re follows the Coptic form rē. Linguists reconstruct the older Egyptian sound as something like riːꜥuw, with a throat sound before the last vowel.

Which pharaohs have Ra in their names?

Most kings from the Middle Kingdom on carry it in their throne name. Famous ones include Khafre, Menkaure, Thutmose III (Menkheperre), Amenhotep III (Nebmaatre), Tutankhamun (Nebkheperure) and Ramesses II, who has Ra in both his cartouches.

Why is the sun sign at the top of a cartouche when it is read last?

Scribes wrote gods' names first as a mark of respect, even where speech put them later. A reader starts with the signs under the disc and adds Ra at the end.

Glossary

birth name: The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
Coptic: The last stage of the Egyptian language, written in Greek letters with a few extra letters taken from demotic. The Coptic Church still uses it, and it showed scholars how Egyptian words sounded.
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.
dynasty: A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
honorific transposition: Writing the name of a god or king first, out of respect, even where it is read later in the phrase.
Maat: Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
Old Kingdom: The age of the pyramid builders, about 2686 to 2181 BC, from the 3rd to the 6th Dynasty.
scarab: The dung beetle, sign of the rising sun and of the word ḫpr, "to come into being". Carved scarabs were used as seals and amulets.
scribe: A person trained to read and write, who kept accounts, wrote letters and copied texts. Few Egyptians could write, and scribes were well respected.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
throne name: The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.

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Where to see it

Abu Simbel site