Deity · Egyptian · c. 2600 BCE
Khepri
Also called Khepera, Kheper
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.
Deep source base
Egyptian solar theology gives the sun three names across the day: Khepri at dawn, Ra at noon, Atum at evening. Khepri is the sun being born, and the image is a dung beetle pushing its ball across the ground. Egyptians observed young beetles emerging from that ball and concluded the insect generated itself, which made it the exact right sign for a sun that produces itself every morning without help.
The pun is doing real work. Kheper means to come into being; a kheper is a beetle; Khepri is the god. Egyptian theology is fond of this kind of thing and does not treat it as decoration — the resemblance between the words is itself part of the argument that the things are connected.
He is not an independent deity with a cult of his own so much as a phase of the sun. The scarab is one of the commonest amulets ever made in Egypt, placed over the heart of the dead, so his image outlasted almost everything else in this list.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
What the name means
From kheper, 'to come into being'. The name is a verb: the god is the sun in the act of becoming, and the same root gives the word for a form or manifestation.
Where it was actually worshipped
Heliopolis, with the solar cult
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 Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- The Morning Sun
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Heliopolis, with the solar cult
- Era
- c. 2600 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
Traits
- Domain
- The rising sun, coming into being, self-generation
- Traditional form
- A scarab beetle, or a man with a scarab for a head
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Khepri, 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.
- divination1
- material1
3 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 3 texts that names Khepri, 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.
3 texts spanning roughly 850 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Khepri, Khepera, Kheper
- Rank: given as The becoming one; Heart scarab
The sun at the moment of coming into being, named from the verb for becoming. The scarab that pushes its ball into existence is already the model here, which dates the pun and the theology together.
The sun in its morning form, self-produced and rising. The dead identify themselves with him in order to be reborn the same way the sun is, and his scarab is set over the heart.
The scarab worn and buried as an amulet of becoming, the most numerous single amulet form in Egyptian archaeology.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Afterwards
What did later readers make of it?
Paired with the fourth plague on the reasoning that a plague of insects assaults an insect god. The corpus grades that D: the Hebrew term for the swarms does not say what they are, a scarab is not a fly, and Khepri is the morning sun rather than a deity of vermin.
Kept in its own section on purpose. Everything above is what the cited texts say; this is what was built on top of them afterwards, and blending the two is how most popular demonology goes wrong.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Khepri?
Is Khepri the same as Ra?
What rank is Khepri?
How else is Khepri spelled?
What is Khepri said to do?
How old is Khepri?
Nearest in the corpus
If Khepri 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.
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.
Set
God of Storms and Disorder · Egyptian
Murderer of Osiris and defender of the sun-barque — a god who was worshipped as a royal patron for two millennia before being recast as the enemy.
The books behind Khepri
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 ↗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
Egyptian Amulets & Domestic Objects
Anonymous; recovered from settlements and burials · c. 2000 BCE onward · Material evidence
Read Egyptian Amulets & Domestic Objects in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Roland Unger · 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.