Son of Ra

Son of Ra

The title “Son of Ra” is written with the duck glyph 𓅭 G39 and the sun glyph 𓇳 N5. “Son of Ra” is one of the “great five names”. These are explained as many royal titles of just 1 person, but typically listed with different personal names, which would point to several persons.

All of these titles are in their official sense either unexplained or nonsensical. The title “Son of Ra” is supposed to emphasize the king’s role as a “representative of the solar god Ra”. But what exactly is this role? And why does it need a separate name as well? And why don’t all the other Egyptian gods have a representative role?

Personal name (nomen)

𓅭𓇳 

This was the name given at birth. The name itself was preceded by the title “Son of Ra”, written with the hieroglyph of a duck (za), a homonym for the word meaning “son” (za), adjacent to an image of the sun, a hieroglyph for the chief solar deity Ra. It was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the king’s role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the preceding title was interpreted as “daughter” also. Wikipedia: Ancient Egyptian royal titulary

At least Wikipedia admits that the title is not about ducks. Rather, the duck is a homonym for the word for “son”. This is how multiliteral hieroglyphs worked.

I haven’t yet fully worked out the “great five names”, but I’ll present a possible solution here for the “Son of Ra”.

Egyptian root sȝ for “guarding” & “leading”

The general meaning of the root √zȝ / √sȝ may be not “son”, but “something following behind” or “being protected behind”. The duck glyph was perhaps used because of the way a mother duck guards the ducklings, has them follow behind, and shields them with her wings.

Most importantly, seeing that “Son of Ra” was a title, the word root √sȝ was used in titles, some of gods, but many clearly of humans. Since sȝ means “guarding” & “protecting”, it’s usually translated as “guardian” in titles, i.e. someone who was in charge of some asset.

It is thus possible that the duck glyph 𓅭 sȝ in the “Son of Ra” title really stood for the leadership title “guardian”, “warden”, “custodian”.

Sun glyph as rˤ for “sun” and jtn for “secret”

The sun glyph is harder to figure out. There are several possible puns, and maybe several could be meant at the same time.

The sun glyph 𓇳 N5 is usually transcribed as rˤ and transliterated as ra or re, which means “sun” & “day”. The god Ra also seems to pun with wr-ˤȝ for “greater aristocracy”.

However, there is a more spooky explanation for the sun glyph: The very same glyph 𓇳 N5 is also sometimes read as jtn / jdn “disk”, because to humans the sun appears as a disk. And since we’re looking at at title, jtn / jdn “disk” is a very good pun with jdn “deputy”, which occurs in many Egyptian titles. The same word also means “proxy” & “substitute”. And it puns with jtnw “secret”.

In theory, the “Son of Ra” may have been simply a “deputy warden”, because the glyphs can be read that way. However, in that case the Egyptian elites could have written it more legibly, and modern Egyptologists would probably also have officially admitted that meaning.

So it’s possible that the “Son of Ra” was a “proxy” & “substitute” in another sense: Perhaps it was a kind of high-ranking doppelganger for the king, who would appear to the subjects and even officials as the king himself. He must’ve been an important person too, since his name was listed on the king steles. The pun with “secret” may have been true at the same time: The existence of such roles must have been kept secret, or they wouldn’t have worked.

There are other possible puns though. Perhaps future analysis of the other “great five names” will give us more hints.