Turning to cult and ritual, the Tebtunis temple library is a particularly good source for texts that deal with the daily operations of an actual temple (Ryholt 2005a: 148-51; v. Lieven 2005; Quack 2006b; Jay 2007). Assuming that the texts attested in multiple copies were the more important, we may see the Daily Ritual, the Offering Ritual, and the Ritual for Opening the Mouth as essential which, indeed, is what one would expect.
The Daily Ritual (at least three papyri; two published in Osing and Rosati 1998: 101-28) preserves acts and recitations to be made at the opening of the shrine and the morning toilet of the god. The Daily Ritual is also attested in a contemporary Demotic papyrus from Soknopaiou Nesos (Stadler 2005), as well as three Hieratic papyri from the late tenth century bc. The Offering Ritual (at least five papyri) gives instructions for the correct presentation ofofferings, while the Ritual for Opening the Mouth (six papyri; Quack 2006f: 69-150) provides the inanimate statue with life, just as it provides the mummy with life when used in a funerary context. Noteworthy is the fact that only one copy ofthe latter is inscribed for the god Soknebtunis; the other five all pertain to Sokar-Osiris and were apparently intended for use during the important Khoiak Festival.
Other ritual texts relating to the super-regional cult of Osiris include one or more Osiris liturgies bearing the title Glorification by the Two Sisters (four papyri; one published by v. Lieven 2006), as well as the Ritual for Bringing Sokar Out of the Shrine (one papyrus; Quack 2006e), all of which - like the Ritual for Opening the Mouth - are otherwise well attested in funerary contexts (cf. below).
Another group of texts essential in relation to the cult are the royal protection and purification rituals. In principle, the king was responsible for the cult in every temple, but in the everyday operation of the numerous temples around the country he was necessarily deputized by local priests who performed these rituals while they assumed the role of the king. The Tebtunis temple library contained several copies of such rituals (cf. Quack 2002b: 97-100; 2006b: 4-5), one of which is parallel to the protective spells in the Manual on the Pantheistic Bes from the ‘‘Brooklyn Library’’ (Sauneron 1970; cf. below) and another to the royal purification ritual in Berlin published by Schott (1957). The ‘‘Brooklyn Library’’ includes at least one further royal protection ritual (O’Rourke 2002), as well as a liturgical guide for the royal accession ceremonies performed each New Year (Goyon 1972; 1974). Another ritual text aimed at the protection of the king during the night was entitled Protection of the Bed and is preserved in a papyrus of unknown provenance (Roman; Golenischeff 1927: 114-31).
Most of these texts had a very long tradition dating back to the New Kingdom and in some cases further back. As far as the Tebtunis temple library is concerned, they were all written in Hieratic and, in contrast to the Demotic texts, mostly on fresh papyrus, although there are some examples of re-use.
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