Khepri (Egyptian: ḫprj, also transliterated Khepera, Kheper, Khepra, Chepri) is a scarab-faced god in ancient Egyptian religion who represents the rising or morning sun. By extension, he can also represent creation and the renewal of life.
Etymology The name "Khepri" appeared in the Pyramid texts and usually included the scarab hieroglyph as a determinative or ideogram as a potential means to make any allusions to the god clear. Khepri is also mentioned in the Amduat, as the god is intrinsically linked to cycle of the sun and Ra's nightly journey through the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. Khepri (ḫprj) is derived from the Egyptian language verb ḫpr, meaning to "develop" or "create". Khepri (ḫprj) can also be spelled "Kheper", which is the Egyptian term used to denote the sun god, the scarab beetle, and the verbs "to come into existence" or "to be born".
Symbolism
The god was connected to and often depicted as a scarab beetle (ḫprr in Egyptian). Scarab beetles lay their eggs within dung balls, and as a result, young beetles emerge from the balls fully formed, having eaten their way out of the mounds. This caused ancient Egyptians to believe that these insects were created from nothingness. They also believed that each day the sun was reborn or created from nothing, thus explaining the connection made between the Sun and the scarab. In hour twelve of the Amduat, a newly reborn Khepri helms the solar barque that pushes the sun, moving the morning sun across the early day sky. This mirrors the manner in which a scarab beetle pushes large balls of dung along the ground, highlighting the relationship made between Khepri and the insects. Scarab-shaped accessories were common in ancient Egypt, as rings or amulets meant to be attached to necklaces were often fashioned in the shape of these insects. Such objects that depicted scarabs were often handed out to the Egyptian people during public festivals, with the amulets worn in order to bring good fortune, to express devotion to the king or the gods, or to act as protective charms. These scarab idols, whether they were made of faience, an amalgamated material composed of common minerals like quartz and alkaline salts that was cheap to produce, or turquoise, a rare and highly sought after stone, were often colored blue, which signifies that the color might have been significant in its relation to the gods. The color had a variety of meanings to the ancient Egyptians. Blue could have represented the sky or the heavens, the primordial flood, which also suggests that the color symbolized a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Fertility was another characteristic potentially represented by the color blue, as the Nile river was often highlighted by the color. While it is impossible to assume that the blue scarabs depicted in Egyptian art were meant to represent both Khepri and the traits of the color, the correlation between the divine symbolism of the beetle and meaning of the color blue is unlikely to be a mere coincidence.
Religion Khepri was a solar deity and thus connected to the rising sun and the mythical creation of the world. The god and the scarab beetle represented creation and rebirth. There was no cult devoted to Khepri, as he was seen as a manifestation of the more prominent solar deity Ra. The scarab god was however included in the creationist theory of Heliopolis and later Thebes. Often, Khepri and another solar deity, Atum, were seen as aspects of Ra: Khepri represented the morning sun, Ra was the midday sun, and Atum represented the evening sun. As a deity, Khepri's four main functions were creator, protector, sun-god, and the god of resurrection. The central belief surrounding Khepri was the god's ability to renew life, in the same way he restored the sun's existence every morning. Mummified scarab beetles and scarab amulets have been found in pre-dynastic graves, suggesting that Khepri was revered early on in the history of Ancient Egypt.
Appearances in funerary texts Khepri's most important role in ancient Egyptian religion is the integral part he plays in the life and death cycle of the sun. There are three major funerary texts in which Khepri makes an appearance; the Amduat, the Book of Caverns, and the Book of Gates. Each text is similar in that the lifeless corpse of Khepri is conjoined with the soul of Ra at some point during the god's journey through the underworld. In fact, the Book of Gates and the Amduat have been noted to be very similar, with the only significant difference between the two funerary texts being that the Amduat focuses more on the journey Ra takes through the Underworld, whereas the Book of Gates focuses more on the journey a human soul takes to follow the solar god. Khepri's corpse is reached in both texts in the sixth hour of the night, and he leads the solar barque out of the Underworld in both stories as well. The Book of Caverns is unique among these funerary texts in that it is not divided into hours as the other two are, rather it is broken up into tableaus. Regardless of this difference, Khepri's corpse is still depicted within the Underworld, appearing in the third tableau instead of the sixth hour.
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