dangerous power. In art, the sun disk image often incorporates one or two uraei coiled around it. The solar uraeus represents the eye as a dangerous force that encircles the sun god and guards against his enemies, spitting flames like venom. Four uraei are sometimes said to surround Ra's barque. Collectively called "Hathor of the Four Faces", they represent the eye's vigilance in all directions. Ra's enemies are the forces of chaos, which threaten maat, the cosmic order that he creates. They include both humans who spread disorder and cosmic powers like Apep, the embodiment of chaos, whom Ra and the gods who accompany him in his barque are said to combat every night. The malevolent gaze of Apep's own eye is a potent weapon against Ra, and Ra's eye is one of the few powers that can counteract it. Some unclear passages in the Coffin Texts suggest that Apep was thought capable of injuring or stealing the Eye of Ra from its master during the combat. In other texts, the eye's fiery breath assists in Apep's destruction. This apotropaic function of the Eye of Ra is another point of overlap with the Eye of Horus, which was similarly believed to ward off evil. The eye's aggression may even extend to deities who, unlike Apep, are not regarded as evil. Evidence in early funerary texts suggests that at dawn, Ra was believed to swallow the multitude of other gods, who in this instance are equated with the stars, which vanish at sunrise and reappear at sunset. In doing so, he absorbs the gods' power, thereby renewing his own vitality, before spitting them out again at nightfall. The solar eye is said to assist in this effort, slaughtering the gods for Ra to eat. The red light of dawn therefore signifies the blood produced by this slaughter. In the myth called the Destruction of Mankind, related in the Book of the Heavenly Cow from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Ra uses the eye as a weapon against humans who have rebelled against his authority. He sends the eye—Hathor, in her aggressive manifestation as the lioness goddess Sekhmet—to massacre them. She does so, but after the first day of her rampage, Ra decides to prevent her from killing all humanity. He orders that beer be dyed red and poured out over the land. The eye goddess drinks the beer, mistaking it