Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Ra trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ra trivia quiz covers the ancient Egyptian sun god from his cult centre at Heliopolis to his fusion with Amun as King of the Gods. The easy questions are ones anyone with a passing interest in Egypt can answer: what Ra was god of, the animal head he usually wears, the boat he sails across the sky, the serpent that attacks him every night and the pharaoh who briefly replaced him with the sun disc. The harder end is for mythology and Egyptology readers: the two barques of day and night, the ram-headed form he takes in the underworld, the beetle god of the morning sun, the mound and bird of Heliopolis, how humans were made from Ra's tears, the goddess sent to slaughter humanity and the trick with red beer that stopped her, the dynasty that built sun temples in his honour, the number of forms invoked in the Litany of Re, and how Isis extracted his secret name. A couple of questions cover Ra in modern film. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Ra, his associated deities and his cult before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Egyptian Mythology, Ancient Egypt and Greek Gods quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ra was the ancient Egyptian deity of what?
The Sun
He was identified above all with the noon-day sun.
Q 02With which bird's head is Ra most commonly depicted?
A falcon
The falcon form comes from his merger with the sky god Horus.
Q 03What sits on top of Ra's head in his classic depiction?
A sun disc encircled by a cobra
The rearing cobra, or uraeus, became the emblem of royal authority on pharaohs' crowns.
Q 04Which city, later called Heliopolis by the Greeks, was Ra's chief cult centre?
Iunu
Heliopolis simply means Sun City.
Q 05What did Ra sail across the sky each day?
A solar barque
Egyptian kings were buried with real boats, such as the Khufu ship at Giza, for the same journey.
Q 06What was the name of Ra's day boat, the 'Boat of Millions of Years'?
Mandjet
The Mesektet carried him through the twelve hours of night.
Q 07Which animal's head did Ra take on the night boat through the underworld?
A ram
In this form he was called the ram of the west.
Q 08Which giant serpent tried to stop Ra's boat every night?
Apophis
Also called Apep, he embodied isfet, chaos, and could halt the boat with a hypnotic stare.
Q 09Which god, elsewhere a villain, rode with Ra and overcame the serpent each night?
Set
Set's battles with the serpent may have explained thunderstorms, and its movements earthquakes.
Q 10Into how many hours, each with a guarded gate, was Ra's underworld journey divided?
Twelve
The Amduat and the Book of Gates map this journey on New Kingdom tomb walls.
Q 11With which god of the dead did Ra merge while in the underworld?
Osiris
Each dawn was seen as Ra's rebirth from the sky goddess Nut.
Q 12Which scarab-beetle god represented Ra as the morning sun?
Khepri
The image comes from dung beetles rolling their balls across the ground.
Q 13Which ram-headed god was seen as the evening manifestation of Ra?
Khnum
Between them Ra himself stood for midday, when the sun was at its peak.
Q 14Which god's name was combined with Ra's to make the New Kingdom's 'King of the Gods'?
Q 21How did Ra stop the slaughtering goddess from wiping out humanity?
With beer dyed red to look like blood
The tale is told in the Book of the Heavenly Cow, first found in Tutankhamun's outer shrine.
Q 22Which goddess is called the 'cat of Ra' and beheads the serpent to protect him?
Bastet
In another account Ra himself kills the serpent while in the form of a cat.
Q 23Which goddess once danced naked before Ra to cure him of a sulk?
Hathor
Without Hathor, Ra was said to fall into deep depression.
Amun
Amun's name meant the hidden one, and he was patron of Thebes.
Q 15Which sky god was fused with Ra in the name Ra-Horakhty, '... of the Two Horizons'?
Horus
Ra-Horakhty appears enthroned in many Third Intermediate Period copies of the Book of the Dead.
Q 16Which primeval mound rose from the waters of Nun at the start of creation?
The Benben
The word also names the pyramidion, the capstone of a pyramid.
Q 17From what flower did Ra emerge at the dawn of time in one version of the creation myth?
A lotus
Ra then created Shu, god of air, and Tefnut, goddess of moisture.
Q 18Which two deities were the first pair Ra created?
Shu and Tefnut
They stood for the principles of life and right, or justice.
Q 19From what were humans created, according to some accounts of Ra?
His tears and sweat
Ra called all things into being by speaking their secret names.
Q 20Which goddess did Ra send as his Eye to punish humankind for plotting against him?
Sekhmet
She was the lioness form of Hathor, another daughter of Ra.
Q 24How did Isis force Ra to reveal his secret name?
She poisoned him with a snake and withheld the cure
She passed the name to Horus, strengthening his claim to kingship.
Q 25Which sacred bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its cult at Heliopolis?
Mnevis
Apis was the bull of Ptah at Memphis and Buchis the bull of Montu.
Q 26Which group of nine gods did Atum-Ra originate as the first being?
The Ennead
Amun, by contrast, belonged to the Ogdoad, the eight of Hermopolis.
Q 27Which royal house made Ra a state deity and built sun temples in his honour?
The Fifth Dynasty
Its kings claimed to be sons of Ra by the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis.
Q 28How many Old Kingdom sun temples have actually been uncovered by archaeologists?
Two
They stood at Abu Gorab and Abusir, about 15 km south of modern Cairo.
Q 29Which title did pharaohs adopt from the Fourth Dynasty onward to signal descent from Ra?
Son of Ra
Ra was said to have been the first king of Egypt himself.
Q 30Which pharaoh replaced Ra and the other gods with the sun disc Aten?
Akhenaten
Tutankhamun soon reopened the old temples and restored Amun.