Trolls And Dragons

Book 1 of myth series

Last Updated

05/31/21

Chapters

12

Reads

438

Africa

Chapter 10
In Egyptian mythology, Apep is a giant serpent who resides in the Duat, the Egyptian Underworld.[18][19] The Bremner-Rhind papyrus, written in around 310 BC, preserves an account of a much older Egyptian tradition that the setting of the sun is caused by Ra descending to the Duat to battle Apep.[18][19] In some accounts, Apep is as long as the height of eight men with a head made of flint.[19] Thunderstorms and earthquakes were thought to be caused by Apep's roar[20] and solar eclipses were thought to be the result of Apep attacking Ra during the daytime.[20] In some myths, Apep is slain by the god Set.[21] Nehebkau is another giant serpent who guards the Duat and aided Ra in his battle against Apep.[20] Nehebkau was so massive in some stories that the entire earth was believed to rest atop his coils.[20] Denwen is a giant serpent mentioned in the Pyramid Texts whose body was made of fire and who ignited a conflagration that nearly destroyed all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon.[22] He was ultimately defeated by the Pharaoh, a victory which affirmed the Pharaoh's divine right to rule.[23]

The ouroboros was a well-known Egyptian symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail.[24] The precursor to the ouroboros was the "Many-Faced",[24] a serpent with five heads, who, according to the Amduat, the oldest surviving Book of the Afterlife, was said to coil around the corpse of the sun god Ra protectively.[24] The earliest surviving depiction of a "true" ouroboros comes from the gilded shrines in the tomb of Tutankhamun.[24] In the early centuries AD, the ouroboros was adopted as a symbol by Gnostic Christians[25] and chapter 136 of the Pistis Sophia, an early Gnostic text, describes "a great dragon whose tail is in its mouth".[25] In medieval alchemy, the ouroboros became a typical western dragon with wings, legs, and a tail.[24] A famous image of the dragon gnawing on its tail from the eleventh-century Codex Marcianus was copied in numerous works on alchemy.[24]
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