Egyptian god of the morning sun. His name means 'the one who comes into being (by himself)'. He is usually depicted as a beetle or as a man with a beetle as his head. The beetle is a scarab, called kheper in Egyptian. The Egyptians believed that this animal, which lays its eggs in a ball of dung, sprang spontaneously from the earth, which is also what they imagined the sun did. Further, the animal also rolls the dung ball about with its legs, in which the Egyptians saw a parallel with the passage of the sun's disk across the sky. During the last hours of the nocturnal journey of the sun, as is illustrated for example in the Amduat, the rebirth of this heavenly body is prepared for. Khepry also appears during these hours, in order to break through the borders of the underworld at the end of the twelfth hour. This instant was equated by the Egyptians with the birth of the sun god from the sky goddess Nut. The Egyptian perception of reality which takes into account various different aspects did not see any contradiction between a god who engenders himself and a god who is the child of the sky goddess.