Festival of the Valley

Written by Alexandra V. Mironova.

For the first time the ‘Fair Festival of the Valley’ (Hb nfr n int) was mentioned in the sources of the Middle Kingdom, in the reign of Amenemhet I (XII dynasty). But its heyday came in the epoch of the New Kingdom. The festival was celebrated in the ragion of Thebes, from the day of the new moon of the month of Payni (the second month of the season of harvesting), between the harvest time and the beginning of the Nile flood. There is no exact information on the duration of the festival. Some researches believe, there were two days of festivities, other suppose they were up to twelve. In the course of the festival a procession with the barque of Amon-Ra left the temple complex of Karnak and crossed over the river to the opposite western bank, where tombs and mortuary temples of the ruling king and his ancestors were located. Under the late XVIII dynasty, the festival procession included also the barques of other gods of the Theban triad: Mut and Khonsu. The barques with statues of deities stayed in the mortuary temple of the ruling king for a night. Under the XIX dynasty, one of the centres of that festival was the mortuary temple of Seti I, consecrated both for Amon-Ra and the king. In the reign of Ramesses II, when the festival got a special significance, the barques of the Theban triad stayed in the temple of the Ramesseum. That tradition was kept till the Ptolemaic times.

The central meaning of the festival was in establishing a link between the living and the dead. Visiting temples of various kings, the ruler once again confirmed his own position of the legal successor of the throne and begged his royal ancestors for blessing and assistance in the country governance. Another meaning of the festival was associated to mythological ideas of Egyptians on the night journey of Amon-Ra in the underground world, in the course of which the dead went out of their graves welcoming the solar god who was pouring his light out on them. On the days of the Festival of the Valley, Thebans visited tombs of their ancestors, made offerings to them — including bunches of flowers, danced, drank alcohol. Those ceremonies were connected to the cult of Hathor, the patroness of the dead. They believe, that she met a dead person at the gates of the afterworld. Every evening, there was a rite of igniting the torches in the sanctuary of the mortuary temple; in the morning they were extinguished in a basin of milk (a symbol of resurrection) — it symbolized a safe return of a dead to Hathor.

Bibliography

• Bell L. The New Kingdom ‘Divine’ Temple: The Example of Luxor // Temples of Ancient Egypt / Eds. B. E. Shafer, D. Arnold. L.; N.Y., 1997. P. 127–184.
• Cabrol А. Les vois processionnelles de Thebes (OLA, 97). Leuven, 2001.
• Karkowsky J. The Question of the Beautiful Feast of the Valley Representation in Hatshepsut’s Temple at Deir el-Bahari // International Congress of Egyptology (1, 1976, al-Qahira) / Ed. W. F. Reineke (Acts 1^st ICE, 14). Berlin, 1979. P. 359–364.
• Schott S. Das schöne Fest vom Wüstentale: Festbrauche einer Totenstadt. Wiesbaden, 1952.

Tags: Ancient Egypt, Alexandra V. Mironova, Articles, Festivals

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