Sun — The Atlas | SHOE.BLUE

Alchemy

Sun is associated with Gold.
Latin alchemy often marks gold with the sun. The metal and the star are made to stand for each other in a laboratory idiom, not in every gold-using culture.
from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents)
associated with · sourced · culturally specific
Sun is associated with Fire.
The Tablet’s work speaks of lights and of what the sun effects. Fire here is the alchemical operation’s heat, not Vedic Agni.
from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents)
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific

Egyptian religion

Sun is associated with Rebirth.
Egyptian funerary hope is bound to the sun’s daily rising. That daily return is not the same claim as a later European “rebirth” slogan.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific
Sun appears in Egyptian religion.
Egyptian funerary and temple religion is solar in a way Ptolemy’s sun-as-planet is not.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
appears in · partially sourced · documented
Sun is sacred to Ra.
Egyptian temple and funerary religion treats the sun as Ra’s course. The god and the star meet there as an Egyptian itinerary.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
sacred to · sourced · culturally specific
Serpent is opposed to Sun.
Apep’s opposition is to the sun’s night journey. Keep this hostility separate from the Nahua feathered serpent, which is not an enemy of the sun in the same plot.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
opposed to · partially sourced · culturally specific
Eye is associated with Sun.
Egyptian theology can treat the sun as an eye of a god. That solar eye is not the Mediterranean charm against envy.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific

Astrology

Sun is associated with Seven.
Hellenistic astrology counted seven wandering lights, the sun among them. Seven here is a planetary census, not a luck charm.
from Claudius Ptolemy · Tetrabiblos, c. 150 CE
associated with · sourced · documented

Vedic tradition

Sun is connected to Fire.
Vedic hymns join sunlight and the sacrificial fire without making them one substance. Agni is the fire of the offering; the sun is another heat.
from Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation) · The Rigveda, 2014 (this translation); hymns much older
connected to · partially sourced · documented

Sun is associated with Eclipse.
A solar eclipse is the sun covered. Mesopotamian omen literature treated some such coverings as signs; that treatment is not universal.
associated with · interpretive · documented
Circle is associated with Sun.
Disks and wheels have been used as pictures of the sun’s body. Geometry is not a cult.
associated with · interpretive · culturally specific
Cycle is associated with Sun.
The year is a solar return in places that count by solstice and harvest. Egyptian daily solar hope is a different cycle, with a night road.
associated with · interpretive · documented
Calendar is used in Sun.
Solar years and solstice-markers are one way of naming a year. They sit beside lunar months without replacing them in every culture.
used in · interpretive · documented
Shadow is associated with Sun.
A body between sun and ground makes shade. Solar eclipse is a special case of that geometry.
associated with · interpretive · documented

Shinto

Amaterasu represents Sun.
The Kojiki’s Amaterasu is the sun kami of an imperial genealogy. She is not Ra and not a generic solar principle.
from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968
represents · sourced · documented
Ise is associated with Sun.
The shrine of the sun kami is a solar cult site in Japanese terms. Not Heliopolis and not Ra’s boat.
from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968
associated with · partially sourced · documented

Egyptian religion · Nile valley

Scarab is associated with Sun.
The beetle rolling a ball was read as the sun’s becoming. An Egyptian image, not a generic scarab of jewelry shops.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
associated with · sourced · documented
Lotus is associated with Sun.
Egyptian imagery can open the lotus with the sun’s rising. A valley grammar of daybreak.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
associated with · sourced · documented

sources

Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet)
Tabula Smaragdina, medieval Latin Emerald Tablet.
Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)
Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Tetrabiblos · Claudius Ptolemy
Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos.
The Rigveda · Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation)
Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India.
Kojiki · Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation)
Donald L. Philippi, Kojiki.