The Sun Lord of All Ages :: Sun Culture Cultures Cultural Essays

The Sun Lord of All Ages "Sun, heavenly body whose light makes our day, member of the solar system round which the planets revolve "( definition according to the Webster's New Elementary Dictionary). In the literature of the mythology, the legends that relate to the creation of the shiny body occupy a very important role. It was natural for ancient cultures in remote times to speculate about the creation of the visible universe, and specially about the creation of the sun. The sun is presented in a lot of different myths as born from one of the eyes of The Creator God, or as springing into life as the sacrifice of the life of a god or hero, or sometimes as the Supreme Creator itself. While traveling through the different cultures existent in the ancient times, we can recognize common aspects in their different myths. In the case of the sun related myths, we can see common aspect concerning: his creation, and the sun-man relationship. Even though the sun plays an important role in almost all the creatio n myths, there are some cultures were his role it is more important than in others. For example, in the Egyptian myths he is presented as the supreme creator, in the case of the Toltec and Aztec myths he is mostly related to the creation and destruction of the five different worlds and the humans that lived in each of them. In order of importance of the role of the sun in the different cultures, the Egyptians are one of the first ones. For them the sun was the greatest god of all. According to their legends, at the beginning , the world was a waste of water called Nu, from were the sun god was born. "He first appeared as a shiny egg, which floated upon the water's breast and the spirits of the deep, who where the Mother and the Father, were with him there as he was with Nu, for they were the companions of Nu. Ra [Egyptian name for the sun] was greater than Nu from whom he arose. He was the divine father and strong ruler of gods" (Mackenzie, 1). This was the Egyptian explanation for the appearance of that shiny body in the sky, who kept them warm and gave them light during the day, and caused plants to grow which they needed as food to survive.