Deity · Egyptian · c. 2400 BCE
Aker
Two Egyptian lions facing opposite ways — yesterday and tomorrow — with the sun passing between them each night.
Well sourced
The earth as a gate rather than as a surface. He is drawn as two lions seated back to back, or as one double-headed lion, and the sun passes between them at night — the entrance in the west and the exit in the east are the same animal seen from either end. The Pyramid Texts already have him, so this is not a late speculation dressed up as theology. What he is for is the join between the two Egyptian afterlives the corpus otherwise keeps separate: the solar journey through the hours of the night, and the underworld of Osiris that the journey passes through.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. An earth god of the horizon, present in funerary texts rather than in temples.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- Guardian of the Horizon
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- None. An earth god of the horizon, present in funerary texts rather than in temples.
- Era
- c. 2400 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Great Gods of Egypt
Traits
- Domain
- The eastern and western horizons, the gate of the underworld
- Traditional form
- Two lions seated back to back, or a strip of land with a lion's head at each end
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Aker, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial1
- transformation1
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Aker, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 1,150 years
The earth as a gate rather than as a surface: a double lion, or two joined lions facing away from each other, between whose backs the sun passes at night. The corpus's other Aker attestation is late temple material; this shows the conception is as old as the funerary literature itself.
The doubled lion of the horizons, through whose gate the sun enters the underworld at dusk and leaves it at dawn. He belongs to the funerary iconography and the Amduat rather than to the Book of the Dead, where the name does not occur.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Aker?
Is Aker the same as Janus?
What rank is Aker?
What is Aker said to do?
How old is Aker?
Nearest in the corpus
If Aker is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Aker
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Pyramid Texts
Anonymous; carved for the kings and queens of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties · c. 2350–2100 BCE · Old Egyptian
Read The Pyramid Texts in full ↗Egyptian Hymns, Stelae & Temple Inscriptions
Various; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge and others · c. 2000 BCE - 300 BCE · Egyptian
Read Egyptian Hymns, Stelae & Temple Inscriptions in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.