Ra - the universal God

The God Ra in detail:

Other Names: Re, Rah

Patron of: the sun, heaven, kingship, power, light.

Appearance: a pharaoh wearing the sun disk on his head.

Relations: Father of the first divine couple, Shu and Tefnut. 

Grandfather of Geb and Nut, whose children were Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys.

Description: Ra was the almost universally-worshipped king of the gods and all-father of creation. A sun god, he was said to command the chariot that rode across the sky during the day. A king, he was the patron of the pharaoh. Ra is the most central god of the Egyptian pantheon.

Ra's position in the pantheon is unusual. He is the only god, apart from Osiris, who is definitely said to be not on the earth. Ra, it is said, is an aging god, still powerful, but too old to deal with his children any longer, so he has gone exclusively to the sky to watch over the world.  Horus rules over the earth and the gods in his stead, demonstrating the divine right of kingship.

Worship: Worshipped widely throughout Egypt, Ra was the principal sun god for centuries.

Composites

As with most widely worshiped Egyptian deities, Ra's identity was often confused with others as different regional religiouns were merged in an attempt to unite the country.

Amun and Amun-Ra

Amun was a member of the Ogdoad, representing creation energies withAmaunet, a very early patron of Thebes. He was believed to create via breath, and thus was identified with the wind rather than the sun. As the cults of Amun and Ra became increasingly popular in Upper and Lower Egypt creator god. The name Amun-Ra is reconstructed as *ri:ʕu). It is hard to distinguish exactly when this combination happened, but references to Amun-Ra appeared in pyramid texts as early as the fifth dynasty. The most common belief is that Amun-Ra was invented as a new state deity by the (Theban) rulers of the New Kingdom to unite worshipers of Amun with the older cult of Ra around the eighteenth dynasty.

Atum and Atum-Ra

Atum-Ra (or Ra-Atum) was another composite deity formed from two completely separate deities, however Ra shared more similarities with Atum than with Amun. Atum was more closely linked with the sun, and was also a creator god of the Ennead. Both Ra and Atum were regarded as the father of the deities and pharaohs, and were widely worshiped. In older myths, Atum was the creator of Tefnut and Shu, and he was born fromocean Nun

Ra-Horakhty

In later Egyptian mythology,Ra-Horakhty was more of a title or manifestation than a composite deity. It translates as "Ra (who is) Horus of the Horizons". It was intended to link Horakhty (as a sunrise-oriented aspect of Horus) to Ra. It has been suggested that Ra-Horakhty simply refers to the sun's journey from horizon to horizon as Ra, or that it means to show Ra as a symbolic deity of hope and rebirth. (See earlier section: Ra and the sun)

Khepri and Khnum

Khepri was a scarab beetle who rolled up the sun in the mornings, and was sometimes seen as the morning manifestation of Ra. Similarly, the ram-headed god Khnum was also seen as the evening manifestation of Ra. The idea of different deities (or different aspects of Ra) ruling over different times of the day was fairly common, but variable. With Khepri and Khnum taking precedence over sunrise and sunset, Ra often was the representation of midday when the sun reached its peak at noon. Sometimes different aspects of Horus were used instead of Ra's aspects. In Thelema's Liber Resh vel Helios, Ra represents the rising sun, with Hathor as the midday sun and Tum as the setting sun.

Ptah

Ra rarely was combined with Ptah; the sun "crosses" over Ptah in the underworld before Ptah is reborn, thus there would be no sun-ray when this happens. Other combinations can and do exist: The rising sun with sun ray, the noon sun with sun ray, and sitting sun with sunray. But as per the Memphite creation myth he was often said to be Ptah's first creation, through his divine will, especially when associated with Atum or Amun