In the temple of Edfu, a priest touches the painted eye on the doorframe before entering the sanctuary. He does not call it the Eye of Horus. He calls it the wedjat, the sound one. But the eye he touches is the right eye. The left eye, the one that was torn out and restored, belongs to a different story altogether. The Eye of Horus and the Eye of Ra are two distinct symbols from ancient Egyptian mythology, often conflated by modern readers. The Eye of Horus (wedjat) is a protective, healing emblem associated with the moon and restoration, while the Eye of Ra is a separate, destructive force linked to the sun god’s wrath and the cycle of punishment.
The confusion is understandable. Both are eyes. Both belong to gods. Both appear on amulets, tomb walls, and papyri. But they serve opposite functions in the Egyptian cosmos, and confusing them obscures the logic of a system where one eye heals and the other burns.
Where the Two Eyes Come From
The Eye of Horus originates in the myth of the Contendings of Horus and Seth, recorded in the Chester Beatty Papyrus I (c. 1190 BCE). Horus, the falcon-headed son of Osiris, lost his left eye in a battle with his uncle Seth. The eye was torn apart — six pieces, according to some versions — and scattered across Egypt. The god Thoth, patron of writing and magic, gathered the pieces and restored the eye to wholeness. That restored eye became the wedjat, the sound eye, a symbol of healing, completeness, and the triumph of order over chaos.
The Eye of Ra comes from a different narrative, preserved in the Book of the Heavenly Cow (New Kingdom, c. 1300 BCE). Ra, the sun god, grew old and weary of humanity’s rebellion. He sent his eye — a separate divine entity, to punish them. The eye manifested as the goddess Sekhmet, a lioness who slaughtered so many that Ra had to trick her into stopping by flooding the battlefield with red-dyed beer. The eye returned, but it had become a dangerous force that needed to be appeased. This eye is not a wound healed but a weapon unleashed.
The two myths could not be more different in tone. One is about loss and restoration. The other is about punishment and containment.
What Each Eye Actually Means
The Eye of Horus is a symbol of protection, health, and royal power. Egyptians painted it on boats, doorways, and coffins to ward off evil. The wedjat amulet, made of gold, lapis lazuli, or faience, was placed on mummies to ensure the deceased could see in the afterlife. In the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400 BCE), the eye is offered to the dead king as a source of sustenance and renewal. The six fractions of the eye, each corresponding to a different sense or measurement, were used in the Egyptian system of grain measures, linking the symbol to mathematics and the idea of wholeness.
The Eye of Ra, by contrast, is a symbol of destructive solar power. It is the uraeus, the cobra that spits fire at the enemies of the pharaoh. It is the sun’s heat that scorches the desert. In the Coffin Texts (c. 2000 BCE), the Eye of Ra is described as a raging goddess who must be pacified with offerings of beer, music, and blood. Temples held festivals to calm the eye, such as the Festival of Drunkenness, where worshippers drank until they passed out to mimic the pacification of Sekhmet.
One eye protects. The other eye threatens. Both are necessary for cosmic balance.
How You Spoke to Each
The Eye of Horus was invoked in healing rituals. The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) includes spells that call on the wedjat to cure eye diseases. A patient would recite: “I am Horus, and this eye is the wedjat. Let it be sound in my face.” The symbol was also used in the weighing of the heart ceremony, where the heart of the deceased was balanced against the feather of Ma’at. The eye was painted on the balance beam to ensure the judgment was fair.
The Eye of Ra was appeased through ritual violence and intoxication. In the temple of Mut at Karnak, priests performed the “Rite of the Eye of Ra” during the New Year, where a statue of the goddess was carried in procession and offered red beer. The ritual reenacted the myth: the eye was calmed, and the sun rose again. Private individuals also wore amulets of the eye, but these were not the wedjat. They were the irt Ra, the eye of Ra, often depicted as a cobra or a lion-headed goddess. The two amulets look similar, an eye with markings, but the context tells the difference.
The Left Eye and the Right Eye: A Common Confusion
A persistent claim in modern occult literature is that the Eye of Horus is the left eye and the Eye of Ra is the right eye. This is partially true but misleading. In Egyptian iconography, the wedjat is most often the left eye of Horus, the one that was torn out and restored. The right eye of Horus is sometimes associated with the sun, but it is still the eye of Horus, not the eye of Ra. The Eye of Ra is not the right eye of Ra, Ra had two eyes, but the Eye of Ra is a separate entity, a goddess in her own right.
The confusion arises from later syncretism. In the New Kingdom, Horus was merged with Ra as Ra-Horakhty, and the two eyes were sometimes conflated. But in the original mythology, the Eye of Ra is not an eye socket on Ra’s face. It is a being that leaves and returns, a force that can be sent and recalled. The wedjat is a healed wound, a symbol of restoration. They are not two halves of the same pair.
Notable Texts and Figures
The most detailed account of the Eye of Horus myth comes from the Papyrus Chester Beatty I (c. 1190 BCE), which records the Contendings of Horus and Seth. The restoration of the eye is also described in the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 357) and the Book of the Dead (Spell 140). The Eye of Ra narrative appears in the Book of the Heavenly Cow, found in the tombs of Seti I, Ramesses II, and Ramesses III. The goddess Sekhmet, as the Eye of Ra, was worshipped at Memphis and Kom Ombo, where her priests performed rituals to contain her fury.
The Greek historian Plutarch, in his De Iside et Osiride (c. 100 CE), discusses the Eye of Horus as a symbol of the moon, noting that it waxes and wanes like the restored eye. He does not mention the Eye of Ra, suggesting that by the Roman period, the distinction was already fading in popular understanding.
What People Get Wrong
The most common mistake is treating the two eyes as interchangeable. Many modern pagan and occult sources describe the Eye of Horus as a symbol of protection and the Eye of Ra as a symbol of power, but they often use the same eye image for both. In fact, the wedjat is always depicted as a human eye with falcon markings (a teardrop and a spiral), while the Eye of Ra is often shown as a cobra or a lioness, or as a human eye with a sun disk above it.
Another error is claiming that the Eye of Horus is the right eye and the Eye of Ra the left. The wedjat is almost always the left eye in Egyptian art. The right eye of Horus is sometimes called the “eye of the sun,” but it is still the eye of Horus, not the eye of Ra. The Eye of Ra is not an eye of Horus at all.
A third misconception is that the Eye of Ra is purely evil. Egyptians did not see it that way. The eye was dangerous but necessary. Without its destructive heat, the sun would not rise. Without the goddess’s rage, order would collapse. The eye was feared and respected, not hated.
FAQ
Are the Eye of Horus and Eye of Ra the same symbol?
No. They come from different myths and have opposite functions. The Eye of Horus heals and protects; the Eye of Ra punishes and destroys.
Which eye is the Eye of Horus?
The Eye of Horus is most often the left eye, the one torn out by Seth and restored by Thoth. The right eye of Horus is sometimes called the sun eye but is not the Eye of Ra.
What does the Eye of Ra represent?
The Eye of Ra represents the destructive power of the sun, often personified as a lioness goddess (Sekhmet, Hathor, or Tefnut) who punishes humanity and must be appeased.
Can you wear both symbols together?
Ancient Egyptians did wear wedjat amulets for protection. The Eye of Ra was also worn, but as a different amulet, often in the form of a uraeus. Wearing both is historically plausible, but they were not considered a matched set.
The two eyes are not a pair. They are two separate stories about how the cosmos is held together: one through healing, the other through controlled violence. The wedjat reminds us that what is broken can be made whole. The Eye of Ra reminds us that some forces cannot be tamed, only redirected. Both belong on the same shelf, but not in the same frame.
For a deeper look at Egyptian protective symbols, see our guide to Egyptian amulets and their meanings. The Ankh and the Scarab are also essential to understanding this tradition. Return to the esoteric glossary for more comparisons of sacred symbols.