The history of the asteroid's name.
Who Is Apophis?
Apophis has quite the reputation. He’s known as the god of evil,
chaos, darkness and destruction.
In some retellings of his legend, Apophis was actually a former sun god, who was pushed aside when Ra came onto the stage. Ra and Apophis are therefore constantly fighting, since Apophis does not want him to succeed in his task of bringing the dawn every day.
Appearance
Apophis is literally a giant snake, which is why he had nicknames such as “evil lizard” or “
serpent from the Nile”. There have been some stories about the details of his appearance. For example, there are legends that say his body is 50 feet (nearly 15 meters) long. Other stories say that his head is made of flint, a type of hard and sharp stone. Apophis’ other name, Apep, probably derives from another Egyptian word that means “to slither”. It can also refer to the word for being spat out, which would be appropriate given that Apophis is known for being shunned and pushed aside.
Some stories, probably later Roman retellings, describe Apophis as an enormous golden snakes that was miles long, and who tried to swallow the sun every night as Ra traversed
the underworld.
Apophis is certainly one of the few Egyptian gods to always be shown with a monstrous form.
More reading:
Apophis - Egyptian God | Mythology.net