Deity · Egyptian · c. 2000 BCE
Apep
Also called Apophis, Aapep · also recorded as Aphoph (per Wikidata)
The Egyptian chaos-serpent, who attacks the solar barque every night and every night has to be driven off again. Chaos here is a permanent condition, not a defeated enemy.
Well sourced
Unlike the Semitic chaos-dragons, Apep is never finally destroyed. Ra's nightly passage through the underworld requires his repulsion each time, and the ritual texts are correspondingly practical — the *Book of Overthrowing Apep* prescribes making wax figures and burning them. Where Marduk kills Tiamat once and builds the world from her, Egyptian cosmology treats disorder as an unending pressure that order must actively hold off.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None, and emphatically so. He is the one Egyptian power never given a temple, an offering or a priest — the daily rite is his destruction, not his worship.
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
Also known as
- First attested
- The Coffin Texts · c. 2100–1800 BCE
- Rank
- Serpent of Chaos
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- None, and emphatically so. He is the one Egyptian power never given a temple, an offering or a priest — the daily rite is his destruction, not his worship.
- Era
- c. 2000 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Great Gods of Egypt
Traits
- Domain
- Chaos, darkness, dissolution
- Traditional form
- A colossal serpent, often shown pierced by knives
Stats
Known connections
Opposed by
Identified with
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Apep, 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.
- malefic2
malefic
2 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Apep, 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 550 years
Already the standing nightly enemy of the sun in the Middle Kingdom material, and already handled as recurring work rather than as a defeat that holds. The serpent is repelled and returns the following night for the whole of Egyptian history, which is a theology of evil quite unlike a fall.
Attacks the barque of Ra nightly; repelled by Set and by ritual.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Tiamat
The same chaos-serpent role, but never finally defeated.
Identified with Typhon
The serpent the sun fights, read by the Greeks as their own chaos-monster. Recorded by Wikidata (P460); not asserted by a text this corpus carries.
Opposed by Ra
Attacked nightly and never finally victorious.
Identified with The Python Spirit
Serpents of oracle and of constriction; no historical link, and the Greek points at Delphi rather than Egypt.
Identified with Nehushtan
Bronze and stone serpents of the ancient Near East; the resemblance is iconographic, not theological.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Apep?
Is Apep the same as Tiamat?
What rank is Apep?
How else is Apep spelled?
What is Apep said to do?
How old is Apep?
Nearest in the corpus
If Apep 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 Apep
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 Coffin Texts
Anonymous; painted on the coffins of officials and their families · c. 2100–1800 BCE · Middle Egyptian
Read The Coffin Texts in full ↗The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · 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.