Why Does the Setting Sun Make Us Think About Death?

A sunset is something nearly everyone has watched: light fading, then dark. It is easy to see why it came to stand for the end of a life. This article looks at the best-documented example, and is careful about what is known.

What is the Egyptian sun journey?

A journey through the night. The Global Egyptian Museum says the Amduat is a funerary text, from the New Kingdom, that describes the nighttime journey of the sun god through the earth, beginning in the west and ending with his rebirth in the east. It says the scenes are divided into twelve hours, and that the sun god and his crew sail on a river through the center of the earth, comparable to the Nile.

Did the dead follow the sun?

That was the belief. Wikipedia says that the deceased pharaoh was thought to take the same journey, to be reborn and become one with Ra. The museum says the central moment comes in the sixth hour, the deepest point of the underworld, when the sun god unites with the body of Osiris, and that the last hours prepare for sunrise, with the sun reborn in the form of a scarab. The text was first for kings; the museum says that in the Late Period it was also inscribed on coffins and papyri for private people, who favored the last few hours, which focus on rebirth.

Does it connect to other symbols?

In Egypt, yes. The Metropolitan Museum says the lotus, which closes at night and reopens in the morning, was seen as the sun rising at the dawn of creation, and honored as a symbol of daily rebirth. See Why Does the Lotus Symbolize Death and Rebirth?.

Does a sunset mean there is an afterlife?

No. A symbol is an image, not a claim. Nearly everyone can see in a sunset the fading of something and the reliable return of morning, whatever they believe about what follows death.

What is not known?

The sources I found are about Egyptian belief. I did not find studies of how sunset imagery affects dying people or those who grieve them, so I do not make claims about that. For related symbols, see Why Does Spring Represent Rebirth? and Why Does Autumn Remind Us of Mortality?.