Since the temple was not a meeting place for the faithful, but, to a large extent, forbidden territory, the common people, those who were not pure, looked for other ways of making contact with the divine. The public approach to the temple was along an alley, called dromosin Greek, hft-hr in Egyptian, leading to the sacred gate. A lot of activities were concentrated at the temple entrance, which was often the center of the town: official proclamations could be held here; royal and priestly decrees were put up here in public view (Holbl 2005: 37-9); judges, both officials and priests, held court at the gate (Quaegebeur 1993); oaths were sworn by the local god to prove one’s innocence (Kaplony-Heckel 1963: esp. 20-2); notaries and bankers had their offices along the dromos (e. g. Bogaert 1994: 79-92), where one could also find chapels, food stalls, tax offices, and club houses; when the gate opened the public could have a glance into the first court, which was no doubt accessible to important persons and on festive occasions for the masses. Worshippers could also approach the divinity from the rear wall of the temple, where they could come close to the back of the divine statue in its naos. In several temples, e. g. Dendera, Kom Ombo or Shenhur a large relief and/or traces of beams in the wall show the cultic importance of this area (Gutbub 1978).
On festive occasions the god left his temple in a solemn procession, carried in a barque by the priests. Thus, three times a month the statue of Amun of Thebes, sitting on his throne and hidden under a veil (to protect it against evil forces) in a portable sacred barque, crossed the Nile to the west bank on the Festival of the Decad (Doresse 1979). In Pauni the highest civil authorities were present when the god crossed the Nile for the Festival of the Valley (P. Tor. Choach., p. 184). Every year in Epiph Hathor left her temple in Dendera for a divine marriage (‘‘the Good Reunion’’) with Horus in Edfu, 100 km south (Altenmuller 1998). Processions also offered the opportunity to see and to consult the gods. For these special occasions people went on pilgrimage to sanctuaries near-by or far-off to be close to the god, often for oracle consultations or therapeutic purposes (Volokhine 1998: 82-97).
World History
