In some societies, especially in ancient kingdoms or empires, the king was regarded as a god or identified with some god. In early Egypt he was identified with the sky god (Horus) and with the sun god (Re, Amon, or Aton). Similar identifications were made in early China and early Erech in Mesopotamia. In the Turin Papyrus (a list of kings written c. 13th–12th centuries bc), the sun god Re is viewed as the first king of Egypt and the prototype of the pharaoh (the god-king). The symbol of the sun circle, one of the most prevalent artistic representations of the sacred king, and the practice of addressing the king as “my sun” are well depicted in rock reliefs and inscriptions in areas ruled by the Hittite kings. The Persian king was regarded as the incarnation of the sun god or of the moon god. In addition to sky or sun deities, the sacred king also has been identified with other gods: the town god (Mesopotamia), the gods of the country, the god of the storm, and the weather god. Generally, however, the king was not identified with a specific god but rather was regarded as himself a god. As the incarnation of all that is divine, the Egyptian pharaoh was addressed simultaneously in inscriptions as Aton, Horus, and Re. Significant for Egyptian royal theology was the doctrine of the god-kingdom spanning two generations; each king ruled as King Horus and became Osiris (the father of Horus, a fertility god and later god of the dead) after his death.

A broader foundation for the divinity of the king is the view of the king as the son of a god, which can take on different forms. The first king has been regarded as a god and his successors as sons of the god in a number of societies—in Africa, Polynesia, Japan (where the emperor, until the end of World War II, was revered as a descendant of the sun goddess), Peru (where the inca, or ruler, was believed to be a descendant of the sun god), Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan. Because he personifies the divine national hero (as among the Shilluk in Africa), the king can demand divine status, a practice that was taken up in the Greco-Roman world by Alexander the Great and by the Roman emperors. When a king who has been sired by a god or when a god who takes on the external form of the living king approaches his queen, he begets the future king—the queen is thus called the mother of God. An essentially different foundation is the king’s divine sonship through adoption, as, for example, in the legend of King Sargon of Akkad in ancient Mesopotamia. The adoption of the crown prince by a god is often part of the coronation ritual, especially in Mesopotamia: the god declares the king as his son when he ascends the throne.

An especially frequent expression of the relationship of the king to divinity in Egypt and Mesopotamia was that of the king as a god’s image. In Egypt the king—addressed by the god as “my living image on earth”—is shown in the likeness of Re, Aton, Amon, or Horus. In Mesopotamia this kind of description was rare.

The myth of divine ancestry, such as that of Romulus, one of the legendary founders of Rome, in many places served to legitimatize the claims of the king. Unusual natural phenomena, such as an especially bright star, are sometimes connected with the birth of a divine king.

The conception and practice of making a king divine after his death are very old and widespread. Probably connected with ancestor worship, deification is practiced most often when the living king, although connected with gods, is not regarded as a god in the fullest sense. Only after his death does he become god. Among the Hittites, for example, the expression “the king becomes a god” meant that the king had died.

The king as the principal agent of the sacred

In addition to the conception of a king as the incarnation of supernatural power and the possible equality of the king with the divinity, there is also a widespread belief that the king is the executive agent of a god. As the servant of a god, he carries out the work of the god on earth. The divine character of this form of sacred kingship is connected not so much with the individual king as with the institution of kingship. In this emphasis on the institution of kingship lies the difference between kingship in Mesopotamia and Egypt and in India and China. The institution was emphasized in Mesopotamia and China. Sharp distinctions cannot be drawn between the different conceptions of the relationship of a god to kingship. Despite all the different expressions of kingship in the history of Mesopotamia (especially among the empires of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria), there nevertheless was a continuous theme: the real lord of the city, the country, or the state remains the god, and the king remains in a subservient relationship to him. Even when the king possessed or disposed divine power and had sacral character and sacral duties, he remained subordinate to the god who selected him and put him into his regal position. The king had a mediating position between the gods and man, especially in his significance for the cult (thus, Sargon of Akkad is first described in inscriptions as deputy of Ishtar). The king also had a similar status as agent in Mongolia, where it was believed that the king came from heaven and was enthroned by God to carry out his will.