Historical beliefs · Documented tradition
Adoring Re from his rising to his setting
A small limestone statue in New York shows a man named Roy on his knees, hands raised, holding a stela inscribed with a hymn to the sun god Re.
The record
- Who
- Roy, a scribe who was also steward of a queen's temple
- Where
- Thebes, Upper Egypt
- When
- Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep II, about 1427–1396 BCE
- Kind of evidence
- Statue with an inscribed stela, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (17.190.1960)
- A living tradition?
- No
The object
The Met describes the pose, kneeling with hands raised, as a standard pose of worship, and suggests the statue should be understood as Roy reciting the text on his stela.
What the hymn asks
In James P. Allen's translation, published on the Met's page, the hymn adores Re from his rising to his setting and asks for passage on the great boat of the sun. It asks that the serpent who threatens that voyage be held back, so that the night-boat may sail every day (translation tab). The Sun's daily path was a journey that had to be made safely, every day, and the hymn joins in it.
That is a record of one man's devotion in one reign, not a summary of what every Egyptian believed. It sits beside the next generation's experiment with the Sun, the Aten.
Sources
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art Statue of Roy Chanting the Solar Hymn Written on His Stela (17.190.1960) (opens in a new tab) for Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep II, Thebes; Roy kneels reciting a hymn to Re (trans. James P. Allen) · checked 2 October 2026
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art Art, Architecture, and the City in the Reign of Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten (Marsha Hill, 2014) (opens in a new tab) for worship of the light in the orb of the sun (the Aten); the many-armed disk; roots in earlier Dynasty 18 · checked 2 October 2026