Specific rituals had more important functions and so occur throughout the temple in key positions, where they can have the most impact. The most important ritual from the king’s point of view is the offering of Maat. It is a rather understated scene - the king, often wearing his Double Crown, holds a small basket inside which (but shown on top) is the squatting figure of the goddess Maat, identified by the ostrich feather she wears upon her head. Maat was the embodiment of the cosmic harmony and representative of the bargain for reciprocal offerings made between the king and the god. She is a sign that all is well with the cosmos and Egypt and that the temple is functioning. Her appearance on the temple wall is therefore very important and the ritual is often shown in psychologically sensitive positions where it could be easily seen by the temple priests - for example, on doorways or porticos, in the main sanctuary, on the temple axis at the back of the temple and on processional routes through temples (for example, at Edfu, Cauville 1987: 7-9). For this reason the ritual does not seem to form part of the Daily Ritual sequence and can also appear in private and ‘‘public’’ temple space in the New Kingdom, suggesting that its role was more encompassing than may have been first thought (Teeter 1997: 47-8).
Other significant rituals occur in particular places. It has already been noted that smiting enemy rituals, battle scenes and hunting scenes are most often placed on the outside of the temple buildings in order to keep the chaotic forces outside the cosmos. The ritual of smiting enemies can be documented as early as Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, belonging to a Naqada II period ruler, and the classic scene on the Narmer palette is an iconic illustration of the genre. On the temple outer pylons two such smiting scenes sometimes confront one another, while on the flanks of the temple, especially in the New Kingdom and in mortuary temples, it was fashionable to show battles and campaigns of the king. Whether they were totally fictional or based on actual campaign accounts, such scenes fulfilled the ritual requirement of keeping enemies at bay, especially if they represented a perceived threat from all of the borders of Egypt.
Some scenes may have a more specific, mythical allusion. The accompanying texts of the rituals may allude to these myths, but in general, New Kingdom temple texts are very short and do not provide much information about the reasons behind a particular offering or the reasons for the reciprocal offering. For example, on the outside of the Ramesses II enclosure wall at Karnak there is a sequence of rituals, based upon the daily sequence but with some deeper mythical allusions (Helck 1968). On the south wall, there are four rituals in the bottom register: from left to right (22) Offering Maat for Amun-Re; (23) Dragging Sokar (in his Henu boat) for Ptah-Sokar-Osiris who lives in Shetayt; (24) Bringing the meret-chests for Amun-Re; and (25) Making medjet-ointment for Mehyt who lives in Thinis (Tenu). The king receives: ‘‘All health like Re,’’ ‘‘All health like Re,’’ ‘‘the sed-festival of Re’’ and ‘‘the kingship of Atum,’’ as well as ‘‘Yours is the sed-festival of Tatenen, so that your lifetime is like his lifetime.’’
It seems that, as Amun-Re alternates with other gods along this wall, the sequence of rituals shows the pantheon of gods surrounding Amon-re in the temple, but also makes allusion to the gods of other main cult centers, such as those at Memphis (Sokar) and Abydos (Mehyt). Amongst the rituals, the ‘‘bringing of the meret-chests’’ can be explored in more detail from accompanying texts in later temples and comparison with earlier scenes from Old Kingdom tombs. The meret-chests contained red, blue, white, and green cloth and were intended to be used by a son in the mummification of his father. The four cloths represent the four corners of the earth and therefore concern the inheritance due to the true heir who performs the funerary rites. It is, therefore, a ritual of inheritance to show that the king is a legitimate ruler. In Old Kingdom mastaba scenes, similar chests to the meret-chests are shown in funerary processions and have been associated with Osiris. The ritual of dragging the chests also occurs as one of a pair with the ritual of the ‘‘Driving of the Calves’’ (hu-behsu) in which a black, white, red and dappled calf are driven forward by the king. The origins of the ritual may have lain in some kind of harvest-festival ceremony for the threshing of the first grains, but, in Ptolemaic texts, the ritual is carried out so that the calves trample upon and destroy the snake-enemies of Osiris to ensure his preservation and disturb the ground over his tomb to ensure that he remains safely buried. The impression is that much older rituals could have been reworked to include mythical allusions, so that the original meaning of the ritual is almost - but not completely - lost (Egberts 1995a).
The offering of the menat-necklace to Hathor is one of the main rituals connected with this goddess. The necklace comprised a string of beads with a heavy counterpoise, which would have hung behind the wearer to ensure that the necklace stayed in position. The beads could be shaken to make a soothing rattling sound and so were frequently offered with the sistrum-rattle. Together they ensured that Hathor would remain calm and not become her raging, dangerous alter-ego, the lioness Sekhmet.
The sound also seems to have been regarded as a means of driving away illness and so it had protective qualities. The menat was also identified with the testicles of Seth, which Horus had cut off in a fight. The presentation of this symbol of male sexual power to Hathor, the goddess of female sexuality, therefore enables her to harness procreative ability for both men and women. In offering the necklace the king is made more powerful in order to destroy his enemies, as Horus destroyed Seth (Barguet 1953; Wilson 1997: 423-4). Apparently simple rituals could, then, conceal complex allusions to local stories or practices of which we have very few long and connected texts, such as the Papyrus Jumilhac. The latter details the Osirian fight against Seth, but as it is set in the seventeenth and eighteenth nomes of Upper Egypt, just south of the Fayum, the main protagonist is Anubis, suggesting that here he is the champion of the god of the dead as a form of Horus (Vandier 1961; Rossler-Kohler 1982: 708-12).
As at Edfu, sometimes the chambers may allow other deities of the region to make appearances, such as Mehyt, Khonsu, Osiris, and Min. whereas other important state deities, such as Re, also have shrine-chambers. It is likely that together they offer focal points for particular cultic aspects, as, for example the pairing of Osiris and Khonsu chambers can allude to lunar cycles and the waxing and waning of the moon as a symbol of rejuvenation (Cauville 1987: 9-11). At Abydos, the suites of rooms behind the main shrines for the cult of Osiris and a further set of rooms set aside to the south for the Ptah-Sokar and Nefertum funerary cult demonstrate that temples could be regarded as a ‘‘meeting place’’ for divine power (Kurth 1998).
World History
