Do you love to soak in the sun's rays at the beach? Does sunblock to you mean nothing higher than SPF 4? Then you just might be a sun worshipper! Hey, you wouldn't be alone. People in many ancient cultures were heavily into the sun, to the point of worshipping it as a god. And some of the ancient myths behind these gods might surprise you.

Egyptians
They called their sun god Ra (Re) and considered him the creator of light and all things. It is believed that humankind was born from the tears of Ra and that he created the first couple: Shu and Tefnut. They were the parents of the earth and sky. Ra was usually depicted in human form with a falcon head, crowned with the sun disc and encircled by a cobra. The sun itself was taken to be either his body or his eye.

Greeks
Helios was their sun god. The Greeks believed he drove the sun across the sky from east to west in his golden chariot every day. After sunset the sun sailed back across the ocean.

Eskimos
Malina was and continues to be the sun-goddess of the Eskimo people who live in Greenland. Malina and her brother, the moon-god Anningan, lived together. They got into a terrible fight and Malina spread dirty, black grease all over her brother's face. In fear, she ran as far as she could into the sky and became the sun. Annigan chased after her and became the moon. This eternal chase makes the sun alternate in the sky with the moon.

Chinese
According to Chinese mythology, there were ten suns that used to appear in turn in the sky during the Chinese ten-day week. Only one would go on a journey into the skies. But after some time they decided to appear together in the sky. The heat was too much for the people to handle. They asked the suns to fly solo, but they refused. So their father sent the archer Yi down from the heavens to reprimand the disobedient suns, but he ended up killing nine of the suns and the one that remains is the sun they see in the sky.