Festivals in Ancient Egypt

There was nothing better than breaking the routine of life with a splendid festival for the ancient Egyptians. Religious or political festivals allowed the rich and poor to put away their cares for a day or two, sometimes longer, to celebrate the best of ancient Egypt. The festivals in ancient Egypt were diverse and widespread.

Throughout history, religion has been essential in connecting people to maintaining political power and social order, from the Ancient Near East to the Middle Ages and onwards to the 21st century. Undoubtedly, religious festivals played a vital role in Ancient Egypt and fulfilled some functions in a socio-political context.

Vacations and Participation in Ancient Egyptian Festivals

Preparations for these festivals were necessary and elaborate. For instance, the workers of Deir el-Medina were allowed several days off to brew beer for festival preparations. Besides intoxication, Egyptians used other forms of sensory stimulation like movement, scent and sound.

Lastly, festivals and feasts were highly anticipated events since they functioned as a weekend and a moment to participate in the state cult. The access was customarily restricted to high-ranking priests and the Pharaoh by limiting access to the temples. However, this was more lenient during festivals, and non-religious personnel were allowed access to the first court of most temples.

Festival Calendar

From actual data, we can reconstruct a cultic calendar for the principal deities of Egypt, such as Amun at Thebes, Hathor of Dendera, Horus of Edfu and others. Frequently, inscribed on the walls of such temples are detailed lists of feasts, all presented systematically. Such festival calendars were also copied and kept in the scrolls of the temple archives. We often determine whether a banquet occurred within the civil calendar or according to the moon.

Comprehensive records were connected to such celebrations, but we possess only a fraction of these original texts today. However, festival calendars tend to list the details of these celebrations, such as their date, the deity honoured and perhaps a sentence concerning the involvement of a specific priest, in a relatively terse fashion. Fortunately, the walls of the Greco-Roman temples at Dendera, Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae provide additional information not included in the festival calendars, which allow us to reconstruct the events in greater detail. Furthermore, papyri scrolls and fragmentary biographical texts reveal intriguing information such as processions, chants, and speeches’ processions, morning, noon, and evening ablutions.

Offerings during Ancient Egyptian Festivals

Offerings were an essential part of ancient Egyptian festivals, and there are several attestations of alcohol consumption and how this consumption differed from the everyday norm.

From the Old Kingdom onward, festival calendars also explicitly referenced the offerings needed for the deities associated with these events. Notably, during significant events, priests required financial support from the king. There were also the necessary endowments for the performance of these feasts.

Much of our knowledge about this function of festivals comes from Medinet Habu, which presents remarkable details, such as the exact number of bread loaves, cakes, beer containers, meat, fowl, incense, and cultic charcoal listed beside each event. Even the amount of grain that went into making a particular type of loaf or a specific type of beer can be determined by a specific integer that refers to the cooking or brewing undertaken. It is called the “cooking ratio”.

Frequently introducing segments of the temple calendars, or placed next to the respective religious celebrations, are details of the provenance of such offerings, together with the amount of grain that produced a certain number of beer jugs or loaves of bread. We can determine the exact amount of grain needed for these festivals and the cooking ratio. Hence, we can add up the total amount of grain required for the subsistence of a cult, at least for the major ceremonies.

Scholars have determined quantitatively how wealthy a specific central temple was and approximately how many priests were necessary to preserve it.

Diversity of Festivals in Ancient Egypt

Egypt knew an abundance of festivals and feasts. These festivals in Ancient Egypt offered the opportunity to follow the heart and break social and moral values and codes. It meant that people were allowed to give in to their impulses and desires, contrary to non-festival days, during which the heart should be controlled. Indeed, this leads to a lack of restrictions on moralistic overtones and acts of contrition during festivals, leading to a carnival-like setting.

The Egyptian holidays varied widely. The Palermo stone dates back to 2500 BC and reveals many of these holidays. Furthermore, the ancient Egyptians enthralled the walls of Kom Ombo, Edfu, Esna, Dendera and Abydos, with many lists bearing the names of many of those holidays. The ancients celebrated public holidays like New Year’s Day and Flood Day. Also, they had popular holidays relating to a specific category or occasion, such as the New Year wedding feasts. Besides, they celebrated local holidays connected to a particular region or city, such as the birthday of a local deity and his victory day over his enemy.

Cultic and Civil Festivals in Ancient Egypt

The festivals in Ancient Egypt were abundant and varied between official and popular feasts, whether general at the country level or local in each region separately.

Civil Festivals

Most of the festivals that we know of from ancient Egypt are cultic rather than civil. There were plenty of civil celebrations, but our sources are primarily religious. For example, Ramesses III established an annual celebration to honour his victory over the Libyans (Meshwesh), who had unsuccessfully invaded Egypt. Another secular occasion was the coronation of kings; the ancient Egyptians frequently included its date in religious calendars. Since Sothis had no specific cult, the heliacal Rising of Sothis (the star Sirius) might be considered a secular celebration. This event was significant because the reappearance of Sothis after seventy days’ invisibility originally marked the emergence of the New Year and later was thought of as the ideal rebirth of the land.

Most of the festivals that took place were fixed within the civil calendar. These festivals occurred on a specific date or were split over several days. Such festivals are typically called “annual festivals” by scholars.

Although festivals were a significant part of the lives of the ancient people throughout Upper and Lower Egypt, and many nomes or districts had local festivals, a few came to know throughout the land.

The ancient Egyptians celebrated these feasts by decorating and lighting temples, singing songs, and presenting offerings and sacrifices. The ancient Egyptians linked these feasts in their entirety to faith.

Cult Festivals

In ancient Egypt, the state cult where the Pharaoh, or priests he appointed, mediated between gods and men was inaccessible to the commoner. During the festivals, the state cult was made more accessible. This point, in turn, must have led to social tensions and inequality.

As mentioned before, the state cult was not open to the commoners in Egypt. However, it became accessible during the festivals. Commoners could participate in religious celebrations but could not directly contact the divine.

New Year’s Day

Of course, the year’s first celebration was the New Year’s festival. It started on the first day of the year when rejuvenation and rebirth ideally took place for the ancient Egyptians.

The ancient Egyptian celebration of the New Year was special. They called it “Webt Renpet Nefert”, meaning “the opening feast of the beautiful year”. This festival began with the sunrise of the 11th of September, “Tut”, the fourth month. At that time, the Yemeni poetic star appears on the horizon with the dawn of that day. Regarding the flood season, they associated it with the flood itself, the same as the year. The ancient Egyptians noticed that the surge is an annual phenomenon that recurs regularly. They also believed that the flood was nothing but the tears of the goddess Isis, who kept crying for her husband Osiris after his brother Set killed him.

 The year of the monthly division for the ancient Egyptians was – as it is now- 12 months. They divided each month into 30 days but dropped the remaining five days of the year calendar. They dropped it even from their historical events. However, New Year’s Day continued throughout those five days. They spent it in celebrations and joys outside their homes, and the celebrations started from the temple. They went to the upper cabin on the temple roof, carrying bread, cakes, pancakes and wine. Then they went out to the fields and on the Nile bank, enjoying the plants, roses, winds and the beautiful calm atmosphere. Leaving behind the world’s troubles and worries haunted them throughout the year. Their food on New Year’s Day included ducks, geese and fish.

Feast of Wagy

Seventeen days after New Year’s Day, there was the sad feast of Wagy, which eventually became associated with the festival of Thoth on the nineteenth day of the year. This event had a connection with the mortuary rituals of ancient Egypt. Private individuals celebrated it outside of official religious circles and within the precincts of the significant temples in Egypt. Our first evidence of this celebration is from the 4th Dynasty, making it one of the oldest in ancient Egypt. Egyptians set the festival’s original date according to the lunar basis, and ancient Egyptians never discarded it. Hence, during the historical period, there were two Wagy feasts, one Set according to the cycle of the moon and a later one firmly placed on day eighteen of the first civil month.

The Festival of Opet

Centred in Thebes, this boisterous festival, known as the Beautiful Feast of the Opet, was held in the second civil month and was set according to a lunar calendar. Its twenty-seven-day duration in the 20th Dynasty shows how significant the festival became. However, we know virtually nothing about the celebration before the 18th Dynasty and the rise of Thebes. It was perhaps not as old a celebration as some of the other feasts, though, during the New Kingdom, the celebration of Opet was predominant.

Audience

From afar, theban citizens and their guests celebrated the fruitful link between their Pharaoh and the almighty god, Amun, who became a state god in the New Kingdom. During the celebration, ancient Egyptians thought that god Amun would ritually bequeath his might and power to his king’s living son. Therefore, the festival belonged to the official royal ideology of the state and, not surprisingly, witnessed the personal involvement of the Pharaoh.

Because of the flooding, Egyptians suspended work temporarily in the fields. The people joined in a dramatic procession honouring Amun that began at the Temple of Amun in Karnak and ended at Luxor Temple, one and a half miles away at the city’s south end.

At Karnak, the people watched the high priests disappear into the temple. Inside, the priests bathed the image of the god, dressed him in colourful linen and adorned him with jewellery from the temple treasury, including magnificent necklaces, bracelets, wands, amulets and trinkets of gold or silver encrusted with lapis lazuli, enamel, glass and semi-precious gems. The priests then enclosed the god in a shrine and placed the shrine on top of a ceremonial barque or boat, often supported by poles.

Priests

When the priests emerged from the temple, they carried the barque on their shoulders throughout the pillared halls and courtyards of Karnak. Then, they moved into the crowded streets, where people elbowed each other to glimpse the sacred vessel. Many small Egyptian children were lucky to be placed on their parent’s shoulders to see.

In Hatshepsut’s time, the journey was accomplished on foot while stopping at different resting stations. Later, the boat was carried to the Nile and towed upriver to Luxor Temple by high government officials who vied for the enviable honour.

Pharaoh

The Pharaoh was there to greet Amun and escort him to Luxor Temple. The people heard the steady beat of soldiers’ drums and watched as men from Nubia danced to songs of devotion sung by the priests.

After reaching Luxor, the Pharaoh and priests left the crowd behind and manoeuvred the boat into the dark recesses of the temple. Incense filled the air. There was a ceremony communing with another holy image of Amun, Amun-Min, who inseminated the earth, according to the ancient beliefs of creation, and brought about plentiful harvests.

Now, the Pharaoh emerged from the sanctuary. The citizens greeted him wildly and praised his accomplishments; he automatically forgave any wrongs. “He was once more the embodiment of divine strength and generosity, the source of bounty and well-being for Egypt.”

Prayers and Wishes

During the Festival of Opet, Thebans could ask the god questions (oracles) that could be answered by a simple yes or no. A man might ask if his brother in another town was healthy. If the barge dipped forward, the answer was yes; if it backed away, the reply was no. Commoners were also allowed to ask a god questions in his temple. For these exceptional times, the fortunate citizens who had permission into the temple were escorted to unique audience rooms. The priests would convey the answers through a concealed window in the wall or inside a hollow statue.

More than anything, the ancient Egyptian population enjoyed the gods’ generosity during these festivals. During one Opet festival in the 12th century BC, temple officials distributed 11,341 loaves of bread and 385 jars of beer to the citizens.

Transfer of the god Amun

The ancient Egyptians celebrated the feast of the transfer of the god Amun from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple in Thebes. The procession exits from Karnak Temple and is led by priests who carry the sacred boat. The boats of the Theban Trinity (Amon, Mut and Khonsu) – and then they moved Amun’s boat. These priests brought it out of the temple’s Holy of Holies until they reached the Nile bank. Then, they placed the sacred barks on real boats in the Nile and sailed them south towards the Temple of Luxor. Meanwhile, the crowds gather on the eastern bank of the Nile, singing and chanting for the procession. Also, the priestesses sang joyful songs while carrying musical instruments.

Boats stand on the Nile bank in front of the Luxor Temple. At the same time, priests carry the Trinity boats on their shoulders. Furthermore, the masses walk behind them, singing joyfully. The women dance and play musical instruments. Upon reaching the temple, the king makes offerings and sacrifices. The rituals proceeded at Luxor Temple for one night. A few days before, the procession returned to the Karnak temple similarly. The festivities continued for another eleven days. On the other hand, the police secure the parade and the masses because of the congestion.

Beautiful Meeting Festivals

The Ancient Egyptians celebrated the Beautiful Meeting when the procession of the goddess Hathor moved from her temple in Dendera. The priests took her boat – surrounded by the huddled masses – and headed south across the Nile until they reached the temple of Edfu. The Edfu temple was the place where her husband, Horus, was. During this beautiful meeting, Hathor travelled to this temple to spend fifteen days with Horus. Moreover, during the procession, Hathor stopped at the city (Esna), where the Esna ruler offered the procession escorts of the great crowds 500 loaves of bread, 100 vessels of wine, and 30 shoulders of cattle.

On the Nile banks of Edfu, the ruler of Edfu, with the priests and the masses, awaited the Hathor’s procession. The more the parade sailed south, the greater the number of crowds. The crowds remained outside the temple of Horus, singing and dancing for fifteen days, waiting for Hathor to leave and return to Dendera again! whose joy would be upon them, increasing in splendour and brilliance. The god Horus escorts the goddess Hathor away from the eyes of the masses. Furthermore, they spend beautiful times together in happiness and contentment.

Festival of Choiak or Sokar

The festival of Choiak or Sokar rivalled that of Opet during the New Kingdom but was a much older celebration. Ancient Egyptians celebrated it in the fourth month of the Egyptian civil calendar, lasting six days from 25 through 30, though the festival grew much longer. Its importance comes from the connection to the ancient significance of the underworld god Osiris and his link with the archaic powers of Memphis.

This festival originated from the Old Kingdom and grew in importance due to establishing Egypt’s capital at Memphis during the dawn of Egyptian history. We find it first mentioned in private feast lists of the Old Kingdom. However, it is also clear that the deity Sokar predates the unification of Egypt and, thus, Egyptian history itself.

The Sokar festival was indeed a sombre celebration, completing the first season. However, the last days of the feast were observed with no small amount of agony and sadness. This part of the festival soon became associated with Osiris, who was considered dead by the central date of the Sokar feast (day 26).

Rebirth Celebration of Nehebkau

After the Festival of Sokar, it is not surprising that day one of month five had its own New Year’s Day of rebirth, occurring just five days after the death of Osiris. The intervening days were left for the eventual resurrection of the god. Later, Egyptians connected this interval to the king’s rebirth as the living Horus. Hence, the celebration of Nehebkau paralleled the New Year on the first day of month one. Furthermore, almost the same rituals and performances took place on both occasions.

Bast Festival

Bast Festival celebrated the goddess Bastet at her cult centre of Bubastis and another trendy festival. It honoured the birth of the cat goddess Bastet, the guardian of the hearth and home and protector of women, children, and women’s secrets.

Festival of the Fertility god Min

The Min festival was also the opening of a new season. Egyptians carried it out in the ninth civil month, although they set it according to the moon. It is perhaps not surprising that this fertility ritual dates back also to Egypt’s most distant past. However, most of the festival’s knowledge is from sources from the New Kingdom onward.

In this celebration, the king cut the first sheaf of grain. It symbolically supported his role as a life-sustainer of his people. It is remarkable that this festival, associated with Min, was fecundity and the masculinity of rebirth. Therefore, the third festival focuses on birth, predominating the agricultural aspect.

Valentine Sed Festival

The Valentine’s Sed Festival is one of the holidays of great importance to the ancient Egyptians. It was the thirtieth feast where the Pharoah celebrated the thirtieth year of his ascension to the throne. Therefore, the king appears on his throne in full strength. Meanwhile, the masses around him are happy and excited, waiting for the king’s word to prepare them. Furthermore, pharaohs rebuilt some of the temple’s chapels with gold, silver and precious stones! There is a new thirtieth festival full of prosperity and prosperity.

Beautiful Feast of the Valley

Beautiful Feast of the Valley represented another annual event centred in Thebes, where Egyptians looked forward to allowing the living to commune with their loved ones in the afterworld. Though historians can track the celebration back to the Middle Kingdom, it became necessary. Egyptians held it in the tenth civil month.

Procession

The festivities began at Karnak temple on the east bank. Priests placed the sacred image of the god Amun atop a ceremonial boat and carried it down to the Nile. Eventually, the picture of the god Amun was accompanied by the pictures of his wife, Mut and their child, Khonsu. The ceremony is very similar to how it occurred at the Opet Festival.

At the riverside, priests loaded the shrines onto barges. Then, they towed the barges across the Nile to the west to visit the Pharaoh’s mortuary temple and other gods’ temples. A joyous and colourful procession of Egypt’s citizens attended this journey. Acrobats and musicians entertained the masses of people who participated. At the same time, women played the sistrums, a kind of rattle instrument that made a soft jangling that sounded like a breeze blowing through papyrus reeds. This sound soothes the gods and goddesses.

The procession ended at the cemetery, filled with tomb chapels where the ancient people honoured their dead relatives by performing various rituals. Every family wealthy enough to afford a chapel entered the sanctuary and made food and drink for their dead. Archaeologists have uncovered many offering tables and bowls that you can see in any primary museum collection. The celebrants themselves ate heartily and drank a lot of wine. Moreover, they entered an altered state (including intoxication) that made them feel closer to their departed loved ones.

Though certainly different in many ways, these private affairs parallel some present customs of modern Egypt and other cultures. People celebrate a holiday on the grass of cemeteries where their ancestors lay.

Heb-Sed Festival

One of the most significant aspects of this festival is that citizens probably witness it only once. The ancient Egyptians usually celebrated the Heb-Sed Festival 30 years after a king’s rule and every three years. This significant ritual symbolised regeneration to assure a long reign in the Pharaoh’s afterlife. Ancient Egyptians intended to restore harmony between the king and the universe through these ceremonies. Furthermore, priests performed the official rituals after 30 years of a king’s reign in illness or just the king’s old age. However, there is evidence that the ancients scheduled the festival sometimes earlier. It usually began on New Year’s Day, one of the Peret (Emergence) seasons and started with an imposing procession, as did all ancient Egyptian festivals.

Priests performed many Sed ceremonies, dating from predynastic times, before officials and commoners who were lucky enough to participate. For this purpose, they often built fabulous courtyards or reconstructed them for the Sed Festival, with the throne at one end and the audience at the other. Sculptors also reproduced shrines of local deities for the Sed Festival to show the king’s power over all of Egypt. The open court of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara played the function of the Djoser’s Heb-Sed Festival.

King’s Role

Participating in the king’s revitalisation festival witnessed several different rituals. The king gave offerings to the goddess Sechat-Hor, who had fed Horus (the king) with her holy milk, the drink of immortality. Afterwards, the nobles would come before the king, offer services, and rededicate their devotion.

Next was the most famous and essential ritual to show the king’s continued potency. According to La Civilisation de L’Egypte Pharonique, the king would run around the field (or within the Sed courtyard) while carrying several ritual articles. The king held the imyt-pera list of possessions that gave him the right to possess Egypt.

In the festival, priests led the king into two pavilions where he received the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, symbolically renewing the crowning ceremony. Later, the king shot four arrows in the four directions to frighten evil powers and enforce Egypt’s right to rule.

Habits Related to the Festivals

The ancient Egyptians used to make cakes in multiple geometric shapes. They made them in animals or flowers and stuffed them with dried dates. Then they stacked them on slabs of slate – because it was the rock that was easy to cut into panels. And then they baked them. They baked the cake type designated for visiting tombs in a set amulet. “The Knot of Isis” is one of the amulets that open the gates of bliss for the dead. Thus, each ancient Egyptian holiday had a bond that linked them to the afterlife.

Affect of Heritage

The exciting thing is that the current residents of Luxor still celebrate their religious occasions the same way as the ancients. On the anniversary of (Abu al-Hajjaj al-Luxor), his visitors stand on the Nile shore and cross the crowded boats on its banks.

Summary

The social aspects take a lot of different forms. This form could be private celebrations with relatives to public celebrations with the rest of the population. Public and private celebrations had social implications since they broke up the routine for these people. Moreover, they allowed Egyptians to break with social norms and values for a brief period. This break enabled them to forget about their daily life and responsibilities. However, all types of sensory stimulation look much like present-day festivals.