Apophis (Apep / Aphoph)

Sources present multiple traditional etiologies. One strand treats Apophis as a primordial entity existing from the beginning of time in the primeval waters (Nu). Later traditions include origin tales such as a late account in which Apophis sprang from the saliva of the goddess Neith, producing an enormous snake; other accounts connect Apophis to chaotic births associated with the early world and the sun-deity's own creation-cycle. These variants are reported in the Egyptian textual and later scholarly record rather than combined into a single canonical birth-story.

Apophis is usually depicted as a giant serpent or snake—sometimes called a 'Serpent from the Nile' or 'Evil Dragon'—and in some traditions given enormous lengths (variant figures such as 16 yards or a later account of 120 yards are reported). Some texts describe particular features (for example, a head said to be made of flint in one tradition). Because of the belief that images could empower him, surviving iconographic practice commonly pairs any rendering of the serpent with a deity shown subduing or containing the monster.

Within Egyptian myth Apophis functions as the cosmic force of disorder that assaults Ra during the sun-boat's nightly voyage through the regions of the Night. Textual traditions (e.g., Coffin Texts and later elaborations) imply he can overwhelm Ra by means such as a magical gaze, and his struggles are mythically tied to natural disturbances: movements of Apophis were thought to produce earthquakes and his combats (countered by Set and other defenders) may explain thunderstorm phenomena. He is also sometimes described as an eater of souls, a threat in the underworld from which the dead require protection. Divine combatants (Ra, Set, the Eye of Ra) and human ritual jointly counter his assaults.