Re was known as the sun-god and the creator in ancient Egypt. He took on many forms, each depending on where he was. Usually Re was portrayed with a hawk head, wearing a fiery disk like the Sun on his head. In the Underworld, the god took the form of a ram-head. Re was the creator of our world. (From Windows on the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/planets/sun.html)
	Shamash was a Sun god according to the Sumerian mythology (in current-day Iraq). Since he could see everything on Earth , he represented also the god of justice. That is why Shamash was depicted as a ruler seated on a throne. Shamash and his wife, Aya, had two important children. Kittu represented justice, and Misharu was law. Every morning, the gates in the East open up, and Shamash appears. He travels across the sky, and enters the gate in the West. He travels through the Underworld at night in order to begin in the East the next day.(From Windows on the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/planets/sun.html)
	Chinese people believed that there existed ten suns that appeared in turn in the sky during the Chinese ten-day week. Each day the ten suns would travel with their mother, the goddess Xi He, to the Valley of the Light in the East. There, Xi He would wash her children in the lake and put them in the branches of an enormous mulberry tree called fu-sang. From the tree, only one sun would move off into the sky for a journey of one day, to reach the mount Yen-Tzu in the Far West.(From Windows on the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/planets/sun.html)
	A Mayan calendar stone. The sun god, Tonatiuh to the Aztecs in central Mexico, was in charge of the Aztec Heaven called Tollan.  Aztecs believed that four suns had been created in four previous ages, and all of them had died at the end of each cosmic era. Tonatiuh was the fifth sun and the present era is still his. (From Windows on the Universe, http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/planets/sun.html)
	In Hindu mythology, Surya represents the Sun god. Surya is depicted as a red man with three eyes and four arms, riding in a chariot drawn by seven mares. Surya holds water lilies with two of his hands. With his third hand he encourages his worshipers whom he blesses with his fourth hand. In India, Surya is believed to be a benevolent deity capable of healing sick people. Even today, people place the symbol of the Sun over shops because they think it would bring good fortune. (From http://www.goloka.com/docs/gallery/zodiac/surya.html)
	In Greek mythology, Apollo was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Leto (Letona). He was the twin brother of the goddess Artemis. He was the god of the Sun, logic, and reason, and was also a fine musician and healer. Every day Apollo drove the sun chariot across the sky. He had shrines and temples all over ancient Greece: this statue is from the pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. (Image by G. Rieke)