Feb 16

Feb 16 The Sun King

Image of the sun emblem in the Gate of Versailles, France, 1683

The Eternal Sun King: From Horus to Louis

In 1653, a young Louis XIV rose through a trapdoor on a Parisian stage, his golden costume glittering in the light of a thousand candles. As he emerged, the audience gasped at the sight of their sovereign dressed as Apollo, the sun god, in a moment that would define his reign. But this theatrical display was more than mere pageantry—it was the latest iteration of an ancient pattern, one that stretched back through the centuries to the banks of the Nile, preserved in the very words we speak.

The story begins in ancient Egypt, where Horus, son of the mother goddess Isis, embodied the divine right of kingship as the original son of god, known as Ray. He was the sun itself, born into human form as the ruler of the land. He was depicted in several forms, Horus, giving us the word horizon, bridging heaven and earth. He was at his strongest as the noon day sun, but equally magical at sunrise and sunset. In some trinities, he was all three, in others, he was the child noon day son centered between the morning mother (who birthed all life), and the setting sun, the father Ray. All three names: Is, Ra, and El can be found time and time again as forms of names of dieties associated with the sun.

Each pharaoh was considered the living HoRUs, the sun on the hoRIzon. This cosmic dance between divinity and RUlership would echo through millennia, finding new performers in unexpected places, expecially words embedding this ancient god with all the vowels.

Variations of the name Ray, the Egyptian Sun God, can be found with literally every vowel, depicting its roundness of the sun, its royalty, its latin translations into Rex for king, and her RIght to RUle.

A: RAY, sunRAY, gRAnd, RAdiant, tyRAnt
E: REx, REign, gREat, REd
I: RIca, RIch, chRIst, KRIstos, RIng, RIghteous, LIght, LIfe (L&R often synonymous)
O: ROund, ROyal, ROjo
U: RUler, RUby, LUck (L&R often synonymous)

Language itself preserved these connections—in the word "Rex" for king, in "ray" for sunbeam, in the very notion of "reign”, we find traces of this connection. These linguistic fossils, buried in our everyday speech, reveal the enduring power of the sun-king archetype. This sound of royalty continued, though subtle, underneath anyone’s comprehension.

When AlexandROS (Greek spelling) the GREat arrived in Egypt in 331 BC, he understood the power of the overt symbolism of the sun. After drinking a mystical potion at the Siwa Oasis, he embraced his role as the son of Amun-Ra, the sun god. He literally believed he was the sun of god. It was a masterstroke of political theater that would inspire EuROpean rulers for generations to come. The young Macedonian conqueror that had just taken gloRIous Egypt absorbed its most potent symbol of authority.

Aside: looking at the word Alexander itself, the re- spelling as Alexandre is the French, Portuguese, Catalan and Galician forms. It means 'defender of mankind'. But something else in this pops up, we know ros- is a variation of the word king, which is where I get interested. Alexandros is a compound of the verb ἀλέξειν (aléxein; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun ἀνήρ (anḗr, genitive: ἀνδρός, andrós; meaning 'man'). So the word AN-dROS means man. Since the prefix "an-" means "without," then the word andros meaning “man” is equivalent to the “opposite of god”. Literal translation is: Alexander is the defender of non-gods.

The pattern of assimilation with the sun persisted through Rome, where emperors like Augustus made pilgrimages to Alexander's tomb, seeking to capture some essence of this solar divinity.

But it was in the court of Louis XIV that this ancient symbolism would find its most elaborate expression. The young king, born into chaos in 1638, transformed himself into "Le Roi Soleil"—the Sun King. This was no mere nickname. Every aspect of his reign radiated from this central metaphor, from the golden sun emblazoned on gates and woven into tapestries to the very architecture of Versailles itself.

The palace was designed as a solar temple for a modern Apollo. Its east-west alignment allowed the morning sun to illuminate the king's bedchamber, while the Hall of Mirrors multiplied its rays into infinity. Even the gardens, with their precise geometry and RAdiating paths, embodied this cosmic order. It was a landscape that required the deaths of thousands to create, its fountains fed by canals stretching up to 80 miles away—all to manifest the king's vision of divine authority.

Louis XIV understood, as Alexander had before him, that power requires performance. His daily routine became a sacred ritual, with courtiers gathering to watch him dress and dine. Every gesture, every costume, every ceremony reinforced his role as the living sun. He even danced it, performing as Apollo in court ballets, his every movement a demonstration of divine grace and absolute authority.

The sun-king archetype proved remarkably adaptable. When Christianity spread through Europe, it didn't eliminate these solar associations—it absorbed them. Christ became the "light of the world," while medieval kings ruled by "divine right." Even the Catholic Church employed the metaphor, with the Pope claiming to be the sun to the Emperor's moon.

What makes this pattern so enduring? Perhaps it's the fundamental human understanding that light equals life, that the sun's daily journey across the sky mirrors the cycle of power itself: rising, reaching its zenith, then setting to rise again. From Horus to Louis XIV, rulers tapped into this primal symbolism, each adding their own flourishes while maintaining the essential connection between heavenly and earthly authority.

In Louis XIV's ballets, in his portraits, in the very stones of Versailles, we see the culmination of this ancient tradition. The Sun King's 72-year reign marked both the apotheosis and the beginning of the end for absolute monarchy in France. Yet the symbols he employed—the sun, the divine right, the cosmic order—continue to echo in our culture, preserved in our words, our art, and our understanding of power itself, only making this solar significance more potent from ancient times.

The story of the sun king reminds us that power has always required performance, that authority needs its symbols, and that some patterns in human society run deeper than we might imagine. From the banks of the Nile to the gardens of Versailles, the sun god's son continues to cast his long shadow across our shared story.

Imagery

The imagery of a sun/son king persisted well into France in the 1600’s with King Louis XIV (the 14th, referenced here simply as Rex Louis).

Like his idol, he was also known as Louis the Great. This symmetry with the sun emerges much earlier, in the least debatable example of Alexander the Great, ruling over Greece out of Egypt around 333 BC. Rex Louis of France (known as the Sun King), idolized Alexander, who embraced the Egyptian tradition of embodying the Sun God as sole ruler.

This sun/son connection with the words can be seen in the alliteration also in Reign, Rex, and sunRAY, this connection between royalty and glory, as found in all our R- words, a word the ancient Egyptians gave us with their Sun God Ray, the ultimate conquering son.

King Louis just gives us one example, one that pulls the symmetry into modern day.

The Sun King is Born

King Louis’ birth was considered a miracle in 1638. After 23 years and many heartaches, the King and Queen of France finally had their son. All of France was in chaos and rebellion at the time of his birth, and much of Louis’ early life was spent in basic seclusion in a guilded palace, or being swept away during rebellions mob uprisings in the middle of the night. France was at war with Spain, but also itself. The wars that France found itself in around 1648 were known as the Frondes, a makeshift sling shot used by mobs. Many people were upset by the poverty that came with oppressive taxes.

At just four years old, his father died of tuberculosis, and his mother ruled as queen until his 13th birthday. On his coronation, King Louis performed as the lead ballet dancer as Apollo, the sun king. This imagery stuck with him the rest of his life. His stepfather and mother trained him to use this imagery to his advantage. His mother gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule. (Petitfils, Jean-Christian, 2002)

He was saluted as “a visible divinity,” a visible god.

King Louis XIV would go on to rule for 79 years, longer than any other ruler in Europe.

The little king grew up with a pathological need for stability, one which his 19 years of ballet (and 40 performances) became expressions of overblown etiquette and the inflexible clockwork of courtly life.

The people may have hated the governement, but loved their sun king. In one story of a riot surrounging the palace in Paris as a young boy, the Queen Mother took a gamble and apparently opened her window to show the sleeping prince. This was enough to melt the crowd into tender admiration.

On that 13th birthday of his coronation, his ballet was followed by a parade through the streets of Paris, where a glorious crowed cried out “Vive le Roi!”. The 1653 dance of Apollo, the sun god, Louis wore a golden wig, embroidered clothes, a brightly colored feather head dress dotted with diamonds and rubies bursting into sun rays, and high heeled golden dancing shoes. Tutoring from his mother and stepfather (godfather), Louis started to fashion this image as a living sun, a victor over darkness of the Frondes. Later performances would include his political partners and even those pulled out of prisons, taught their own sequences of dance that would be choreographed to demonstrate their subservience. In the explosive final scene of his dance as Apollo, he rose as the literal sun through a mechanism of the stage door in the floor. The king sparkled in the glow of a thousand candles. Little Louis (only 5 foot 4”) was followed by characters of the Morning Star and the Dawn, carrying the dew and the twelve hours of the day in her chariot. Like planets, they rotated in their orbits around the sun, symbolising the all-powerful and absolute ruler. The Ballet Royal de la Nuit was a huge success and was performed a further six times.

The King was even dressed as the Emperor of Rome, which he was not, and even though using the Greek sun god image, considered himself to be the flame bearer of Catholocism. Christ, once again, was equated with this ancient sun god even the Greeks copied from the Africans. In various processions, other kindgoms were displayed as various phases of the moon, only illuminated through the sun’s light. Louis' whole life was a performance, played out on the stage of Versailles: people even watched him get up in a morning and go to bed.

Within the king’s presence, those around him had to be very careful to wear the right clothes, make the right gestures, use the correct phrases, and even display the correct facial expressions. Deviation could mean their son could not get that appointment as an officer in the army. The King had absolute control, literally signing every passport.

This badge of the radiant sun had been used by his own ancestors, but made much more extensive use of. He had it inlaid into furniture and marble floors, woven into carpets and costumes, and into wrought iron gates and doors. He wanted to be constantly compared to the most glorious object in the heavens.

Soon this Apollonian image would be inescapable. It would be reiterated in even more lavish theatrical expressions, plus murals and statues and fountains. he signed some documents as "Louis le Roi Soleil".

His stepfather, Mazarin, coached King Louis XIV on representing himself as the "Sun King" by emphasizing the idea of absolute power, centralized authority, and a divinely ordained image, essentially advising Louis to project himself as the center of the French court and nation, with all power radiating from him like the sun, through lavish court ceremonies, opulent displays, and a carefully cultivated persona at the Palace of Versailles. Mazarin focused on encouraging Louis to use the imagery of Apollo, the Greek sun god, in art, performances, and court rituals, further reinforcing his image as the radiant center of power. From a young age, he would practice careful choreography, which would later grow into establishing strict rules and protocols at court, requiring all subjects to show profound deference to the king, further emphasizing his absolute authority. The construction of Versailles plaeced political power outside of gossipy Paris, inside its own orbit and curated image. He carefully managed the king's public appearances, ensuring he was always presented as a majestic and dignified figure. Mazarin's policies paved the way for the authoritarian reign. Mazarin's reign ended with his death in 1661; before he passed, the cardinal advised Louis to be his own chief minister and never cede power to his aides.

Louis was a renowned womanizer, forced into marriage to his cousin, Mary, a princess of Spain, after denied his request to marry his first love, another Mary. Maybe if they had allowed him his first choice, he may have had a more contented love life.

Alexander’s Example

King Louis (the 14th) loved to compare himself to Alexander the Great.

When Alexander went to Egypt, he was given the title of Pharaoh and the epithet "Son of Ra" (the Egyptian sun deity). In 331 BC in Egypt, he would visit the oracle of the Siwa Oasis (also known as the Oasis of Amun-Ra). It was at that point, legend holds, that Alexander began to refer to Zeus Ammon (Amen) as his true father.
After drinking a psychedelic potion, he truly believed he was the son of the Gods, and an embodiment of the sun, just as the Egyptians believed.
By aligning himself with the Egyptian sun god, Alexander was able to gain the support of the Egyptian people and legitimize his rule over the land.
He founded more than twenty cities, with the most prominent being the city of Alexandria in Egypt. This city would become the home of several world wonders, including a library and lighthouse, and was the home of writing of all the bibiles, both new and old. The Septuagent, the Jewish bible, was compiled here by 70 jewish scholars. And many of the writings of the New Testament, the Christian bible, were also written here. The entire jewish story begins with the Exodus, as the Jews left Egypt, leaving the mysteries of Egypt at the root of the story of Christianity, and her sister religion, Islam.

Little known fact: both Christianity and Islam were born of Judaism, and refer to the same holy books, all known as Abrahamic religions.

This connection with Egypt means we have much to learn about ourselves (having been downstream of many Christian foundations in America) by studying African Religion. This article is just one example how Egyptian traditions have survived in various forms into modern day, most especially found in our words as linguistic fossils.

Louis performing as Alexander in Ballet

Dedication to Louis in the play Alexander

Alexander first united the squabbling Greek cities to a united empire, defeated the Persians, and walked up to Egypt, where they opened arms and allowed him to rule (rather than be destroyed). No ruler in all of history has been able to conquer more land than this young man in his thirties. Julius Caesar reportedly cried over his accomplishments in 62 BC, Plutarch preserving him as saying, “while Alexander, at my age was king of so many people, I have achieved no brilliant success.”

The following Roman Emperor, Augustus, visited Alexander’s grave in Egypt (the location now since lost).

French King Louis did his best to be aligned with the sun of Alexander, even displaying himself as Apollo, the Greek/Roman version of the Egyptian Sun God Ray. The French King Louis starred as the lead dancer in a ballet about Alexander, and was given the dedication in a French play about the ancient ruler. Images of Alexander are preserved today in the Louve, commissioned during King Louis’ reign in the 1600’s, imprinted into portraits, sewn into tapestries, and imprinted into fans. The sun symbol was emboldened into gate facades, vases, and found in virtually every home and room in France in the 1600’s.

In 1661, Louis commissioned a series of enormous paintings representing Alexander’s greatest military successes, to be woven in Paris and hung in the royal palace. Some of these still hang in the Louvre. In all of these paintings, the body of Alexander always has the facial features of the French king.

In his 1665 tragedy Alexandre le Grand, Jean Racine, Louis’s court playwright, addressed the king as a monarch 'whose fame spreads just as far as Alexander’s'. In the grand ballet La Naissance de Venus, Louis danced the role of Alexander on the stage. Both these plays and paintings spread across Europe, with their own adaptations of the french king as both sun king and the Alexander of the time. The King of England (George) had one of the paintings hung in Queen’s Gallery of his own palace.

The Building of the Sun Palace, Versailles

Alexander would inherit his father’s hunting property in Versailles, then spend many decades adding and expanding the property to reach the size of 20x that of Central Park in New York. Today it remains as only a tenth of that (still twice the size of CP). It had a fence surrounding it 27 miles long. Building it pushed out several villages, and brought in exotic plants and trees from the world over. The palace was the epitomy of excess that propelled the French Revolution in the next generation, while also inspiring more o fhte control natural scenery sweeping across Europe.

Just like the city of Alexandria in Egypt, the palace grounds line up with the sun. Laid out in an East/West pattern, the King himself would wake in his room in an intricate morning procession, then walk through the hall of mirrors that projected the sun’s light across the room overlooking the expansive gardens.

The hall was the entire length of the main building, one side all windows, while the oppositte wall hung a new invention: the french version of the Venetian mirrors, to reflect the sun across the entire hall. Major events would take place in this room, from balls to policial events, where Kings would walk the full length to meet the French monarch, and sign Treaties like the one that ended the first World War in 1919.

Throughout the whole room, painted on ceilings and resting in sculpture, are dedications to the sun, the French conquerer aligning himself with the boldestlight in the sky. The king proceeded through this mirrored hall to his private chapel every morning. The King's Bedchamber was located along the axis of the sun, which followed the rising sun from east to west, just as the main street in Alexandria, Egypt, was lit up by the sun every solstice.

The square footage of the palace itself took up enough space to cover over 12 American football fields.

The gardens were a whole other story, also following patterns of sunlight connected with the architecture of the house.

The fountains and waterways required to feed the extensive gardens literally required army support. The exact number of men who died building the gardens of Versailles is unknown, but some say it was around 8,000. They suffered from accidents, fevers, and colds. Three hospitals were built to treat the victims of the project. Canals reached another 18 miles past the royal grounds, making it one of the ancient wonders of the world, sometimes pulling water from 80 miles away.

The gardens were decorated with sculptures of the ancient sun gods and a labyrinth, another hark back to the Egyptian monuments of engineering. The intricate, controlled designs would be imitated through Europe for the next few hundred years of what living within a subdued nature should look like, just as his rule was considered the epitome of absolute monarchy (ie. ccontrol).

When we look back on this era, herbalism in Europe was having a major comeback. The 1600’s saw a major interest in plant medicines, propelled by both this ideal of natural control, as well as an understanding of nature’s benefits. The tulip mania in Holland collapsed in In 1637, just a year before little Louis was born. At its peak, a single tulip cost more than some people’s homes.

Little King Louis was born amid an era of oppuance. As a teenager, he attended the grand event for the construction of another French minister, a nighttime event illuminated by lanterns and fireworks, and 6,000 guests. But this event was remembered with suspicion by the young king, there could not be two suns in the same sky. He was not fond of competition.

Divine Right of Kings

The earliest Egyptians saw their kings as devoted to the people. They related the king to the sun- new in the morning, at their zenith, highest and mightiest equated to the noon day son, and to be aging with the setting son. When the kings grew old, the fertility of the land was in jeaopardy, and sometimes we would see a sacrifice of elderly kings, believing this would help bring fertility to the land. The sun, and the king himself, was equated with the health of the land and all its people. Everything in a king’s life was standardized. In an interesting fact about coronations, men always had to be initiated with a coronation ceremony, while women did not. They were believed to have already been born with a divine right to rule. Their lineage was a matriarchal one to start, as found with other ancient African societies and others world over.

Children were seen as living suns, embodiments of the new light in the world. A woman awoke a virgin again daily, like virgin snow on a landscape. In a mistranslation, virginity meant literally never having had sex before, but in its first instance of being understood, a woman was a virgin again daily, even after many children. This may be one of the most tragic mistranslations in teh attempt to control a woman’s body over time. But men needed to find a way to control who they pass their toys and money onto, and they had no paternity tests, so women were locked within homes and their bodies tightly controlled. The furthest we look back, we always find matrilineal societies first. The creation of life was always tied to a woman- that is, right up until the era of metals, and weaponry turning inventions into modes of war, and coincidentally, also the period of writing, and the ability to change and protect the words that survive. This is also when we see women in stories being raped and married off so men could steal some of the older female power.

Egyptians saw pharaohs (men and women) as living gods. Other cultures, like in Mesopotamia, deified kings after their death. Romans took on this ideal, sometimes using strange rituals, like needing to be standing at death to be deified, etc. The RA king/sun word remains within all these kings: the REX of ChRIstians, tyRAnts of CaesARs, IndRAns, ZoRO-astRIans, etc.

Later Christianity would extend the “divine right of kings” to the pope, and even political people in Parliament. Their rule was absolute, beyond any law, since thought to be given by god. Any threat to, or attempt to diminish their power was seen as a sacriligeous act.

The Bishops of Rome equated themselves to the sun, while the Emperor was the moon, shining only by the sun’s light. The Catholic Church around 1200 AD used this sun/moon allegory as one of its tactics for domination of Europe. Yes, the Church had a goal of total domination.

The pope copied the imagery found in the Book of Genesis to equate the sun with power to rule.

Is a sun king against the imagery christianity? No, in fact, the french king was very openly Catholic, and was very much against the idea of religious freedom, actually ending it for the people of France. His goal was strict unity, a rule of Christianity/Catholicism from the start, where the word heresy literally means choice. Under King Louis, all were to be strictly Catholic. During his coronation, at 13 years old, little Louis swore to defend the Catholic faith. He put restrictions and orderderd persecution of Jansenists and Protestants. But he also felt it was okay to be displayed as the Greek sun god, Apollo. And just like Christ and Apollo, he was the shining sun itself.

Christianity knows full well of the sun connection. Early Christianity emerged in the Roman Empire, where sun worship, especially in the form of Sol Invictus (the "Unconquered Sun"), was prominent. Some scholars suggest that as Christianity spread, it incorporated or reinterpreted certain elements familiar to pagan converts.

Although he was a devout Catholic, he resented the Pope's efforts to control the French Church. In 1682, he imposed the Gallican articles on the French hierarchy, giving the king almost total control over the naming of bishops and the internal affairs of the church.

Gold Coins

The Louis kings even brought new life to the gold coins of f-RA-nce.

To get the the start of the use of gold coins, we start with some coin rings, worn by the earliest Romans.

The stories of gold coins bring us first all the way back to Ancient Egyptians, who, before coins, prominently wore golden RIngs, a name that preserves the name of the sun in its roundness, used as stamps for treaties, copied today by modern day popes. The earliest existing RIngs are those found in the tombs of ancient Egypt, representing eternity, often depicted by a serpent swallowing its tail. Rings often had symbolic designs engraved into them, such as images of gods, scarabs, and other protective motif, and were used for sealing documents, which had the owner's name or title inscribed on them, just like the pope later would copy.

These wearable gold pieces would eventually be used in trading circles, but not as currency until 600 BC in the kingdom of Lydia (modern day Turkey) by King CROEsus. Lydian coins often depicted a sunburst above the head of a lion, which was considered a symbol of the sun. The lion was also thought to be able to look directly into the sun, and was considered a personification of it.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the ring finger, or the fourth finger of the left hand, contained a “vena amoris” or “vein of love” that led directly to the heart. When Alexander the Great conquered the Egyptians, the Greeks adopted the tradition of giving rings to their lovers to represent devotion. Many of these rings depicted Eros or Cupid, the god of love. When the Romans conquered Greece, they picked up on this tradition and began using iron and copper rings in marriage ceremonies, even wearing wedding rings on their ring finger. Although their belief isn’t anatomically correct, the tradition of women wearing rings on the ring finger continues to this day. At first, only noble classes were allowed to wear gold rings in Rome, but by around 150 AD, most rings were made of gold, but slaves were still restricted from wearing them.

Within this same generation, the first coins in British isles came around 100 BC, with an image of Apollo, the sun god stamped into them.

Around 300 AD, many rings carried the Greek inscription Πουλχρης (PoulchRIs), which means “beauty’s ring,” which praises the recipient as the most beautiful of women.

The term soveREign, for gold coin (note… not silver, but gold like the sun), made of pure gold, was first used in England in the 1489 AD. Note, Britain and France had been in competition since prior to the Roman era sparked with Julius Caesar. The British sovereign coin featuring the portrait of the king, with a ROse, the queen of all flowers, on the reverse side. Previous coins always had the ruler, often female in ancient times, and often of the sun, round and gold, like that of the sun. Small, gold coins, called scillingas (shillings), were also reffered to as thRYmsas.

in the 1600’s, many countries in Europe featured coins with the portrait of the reigning sovereign. The Louis d’or gold coins, as their name suggests, were minted with the portraits of Kings Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, starting in 1640 by our Louis’ father. This coin was introduced with the aim of reform and to restore confidence in French currency away from other currencies. These Louis coins continued until the reign of Napoleon, another French Egyptofile, whose 3 years in Egypt brought us the Rosetta stone, 30 years later giving voice back to the ancient Egyptians.

Puritans in colonial America considered jewelry frivolous. They did not like the excesses of the church, and often called them out on their pagan origins, and perpetuations. Puritan husbands gave their wives thimbles instead of rings. After brides used their thimbles to sew clothes and textiles for their new home, they could then saw off the tops of their thimbles to create rings.