Apep
Mythological Narrative
Apep is a colossal coiled serpent; in the illustrated netherworld books his body winds across entire registers, sometimes shown hacked into segments that still writhe. He embodies isfet, the chaos and non-being opposed to the order of maat. First attested in Middle Kingdom sources, he thereafter occupies the center of Egyptian ideas of the beyond: each night, as the sun crosses the Duat, Apep waits on the sandbanks, transfixes the crew of the barque with his hypnotic stare, and tries to drink the river dry and swallow the sun. Set spears him from the prow while other gods bind him with ropes and carve him with knives — and the next night he is whole again. Eclipses and storms were read as moments when Apep briefly succeeded.
He is a rarity in the Egyptian pantheon: an entity of pure enmity, with no temple, no priesthood, no offerings — only execration. The Book of Overthrowing Apep, preserved in Papyrus Bremner-Rhind (a copy of about the fourth century BCE, now in the British Museum), records the daily temple rite: an image of the serpent was modeled in wax, inscribed with his name, spat upon, trampled, pierced with a spear, and burned, to speed the solar barque safely on.
In the Hellenistic period his name was rendered Apophis, and modern astronomy borrowed it for near-Earth asteroid 99942, discovered in 2004, which will pass close by Earth in 2029.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## The Night Serpent
Apep (Apophis) is the chaos snake who waits in the Duat for Ra's night bark. Temple books of overpowering Apep prescribe spitting, trampling, and burning wax images so the sun can rise. He is not a god one petitions; he is the enemy the liturgy has to kill every night.
Coffin and underworld books picture him already speared, because the rite assumes the danger is real until dawn.
## Overthrowing Apep
The Bremner-Rhind papyrus (British Museum, c. 4th century BCE) preserves the *Book of Overthrowing Apep*, a temple ritual in which priests named the serpent, wrote his name on papyrus or modelled him in wax, then spat on, trampled, stabbed, and burned the figure. In the *Amduat* and *Book of Gates*, Apep lies in the path of the night barque in the seventh hour and is bound and cut by Isis, Serqet, and the other gods; in some scenes Set himself spears him from the prow.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Apep.
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Set
The storm god who murdered his brother Osiris, shown with a curve-snouted, square-eared head matching no real animal; both a breaker of order and the nightly defender who spears Apep from the solar barque.
Duat
The netherworld the sun crosses each night, divided into twelve hour-regions with rivers, lakes of fire, and guarded gates; here the dead are judged, the justified passing on to the Field of Reeds.
Ra
The Egyptian sun god and creator, falcon-headed and crowned with the solar disk, who sails the sky by day and battles the chaos serpent Apep in the netherworld each night.
Ammit
The Devourer of the Dead, a demon with the head of a crocodile, torso of a lion, and hindquarters of a hippopotamus. She consumes the hearts of those found unworthy in the Hall of Judgment.