English (United Kingdom) 
Russian (Russia) The Wag Festival (wAg) has been known since the epoch of the Old Kingdom. It is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts and in calendar lists of private tombs. The information of the festival ceremonies is quite scarce. It seems to be a close connection between that festival and the Osirian cult, For the most part of Egyptians, the Wag Festival was, obviously, a family celebration. In the epoch of the Middle Kingdom, it came on the 18th day of the month of Thoth (the first month of the season of inundation). In the calendar of Ramesses III from the temple in Medinet Habu that festival intersected with the festival of god Thoth — the 19th day of the same month. According to the Pyramid Texts, preliminary steps to that festival were sowing and harvesting (Pyr. 1878–1881). On the 18th day of Thoth, people visited tombs, made offerings for deceased, enlightened lamps symbolizing the expulsion of darkness, extermination of the evil forces, who could hinder a dead in his wandering through the afterworld.
The festival programme was associated with the motif of the journey of a deceased to the district of Abydos, where the tomb of Osiris, the god of dying and resurrecting forces of the nature, was located. That plot was frequently depicted in tombs’ reliefs and paintings. The development of the concept of the pilgrimage to Abydos, the resting place of Osiris, was due to the desire of a deceased to participate in the festival in Abydos even after the death and through it to get a justification at the Osiris judgment, after which it would be possible to return to the grave. A possibility to travel to the desired place a deceased could attain, evidently, through the rituals of ‘opening of the mouth and eyes’ and sAx (‘transformation into Ah’), which gave him an ability to eat, speak and see in the other world. In the course of the festival, models of boats were, obviously, put on the grave annex — for a day they have indicated the direction to Abydos, the cult city of Osiris. Next day, when the symbolical return of the deceased into his grave took place, those boats were turned into the opposite direction.
Bibliography
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Kees G. Zaupokoinye verovaniya drevnikh egiptyan: ot istokov i do iskhoda Srednego Tsarstva (The Afterlife Beliefs of Ancient Egyptians: from initial up to the end of the Middle Kingdom) / transl. from German by I.A. Bogdanov. St. Petersburg, 2005.
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Bleeker C. J. Egyptian Festivals: Enactments of Religious Renewal. Leiden, 1967.
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Krauss R. Wenn und Aber: Das Wag-Fest und die Chronologie des Alten Reiches // GM. 1998. Bd. 162. S. 53–63.
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Myśliwiec K. Eighteenth Dynasty before Amarna Period. Leiden, 1985.
Tags: Ancient Egypt, Alexandra V. Mironova, Articles, Festivals