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Apep ( or ) or Apophis (; ; also spelled Apepi or Aapep) was the ancient Egyptian deity who embodied chaos (''ı͗zft'' in Egyptian) and was thus the opponent of light and Ma'at (order/truth). He appears in art as a giant serpent. His name is reconstructed by Egyptologists as *(unicode:ʻAʼpāpī), as it was written ''(unicode:ꜥꜣpp(y))'' and survived in later Coptic as ''Aphōph''.〔Erman, Adolf, and Hermann Grapow, eds. 1926–1953. ''Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache im Auftrage der deutschen Akademien''. 6 vols. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'schen Buchhandlungen. (Reprinted Berlin: Akademie-Verlag GmbH, 1971).〕 Apep was first mentioned in the Eighth Dynasty, and he was honored in the names of the Fourteenth Dynasty king 'Apepi and of the Greater Hyksos king Apophis. ==Development== Ra was the solar deity, bringer of light, and thus the upholder of Ma'at. Apep was viewed as the greatest enemy of Ra, and thus was given the title ''Enemy of Ra'', and also "the Lord of Chaos". As the personification of all that was evil, Apep was seen as a giant snake or serpent leading to such titles as ''Serpent from the Nile'' and ''Evil Lizard''. Some elaborations said that he stretched 16 yards in length and had a head made of flint. Already on a Naqada I (ca. 4000 BC) C-ware bowl (now in Cairo) a snake was painted on the inside rim combined with other desert and aquatic animals as a possible enemy of a deity, possibly a solar deity, who is invisibly hunting in a big rowing vessel.〔C.Wolterman, in ''Jaarbericht van Ex Oriente Lux'', Leiden Nr.37 (2002).〕 Also, comparable hostile snakes as enemies of the sun god existed under other names (in the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts) already before the name Apep occurred. The etymology of his name (ꜥꜣpp) is perhaps to be sought in some west-semitic language where a word root ꜣpp meaning 'to slither' existed. A verb root ꜥꜣpp does at any rate not exist elsewhere in Ancient Egyptian. (It is not to be confused with the verb ꜥpı͗/ꜥpp: 'to fly across the sky, to travel') Apep's name much later came to be falsely connected etymologically in Egyptian with a different root meaning ''(he who was) spat out''; the Romans referred to Apep by this translation of his name. Apophis was a large golden snake known to be miles long. He was so large that he attempted to swallow the sun every day. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Apep」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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