24/10/2021
EGYPTIAN RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
Ancient Egypt presented a complexity regarding religion, its beliefs and its divinities, in fact there was a contradiction of different divinities often very distant from each other and within this polytheism there was also the cult of animals.
Of particular importance for the ancient Egyptians were the religious ceremonies that represented the institutional moments of public life
There were two types of Egyptian religious feasts, those defined as astronomical, that is, linked to the stars and those "of the times of the year" linked to the seasons and to which the feast of Opet belonged.
The most important was the Feast of the Opet during which the statue of Amun was carried in procession from Karnak to Luxor, a procession that took place partly on land and partly along the Nile.
This holiday was so deeply felt that as a rule it lasted 11 days but, often, it even lasted 27 days.
The Islamic festival of Abu Haggag is still celebrated in Luxor today, during which a procession of boats goes around the temple to pay homage to a Muslim saint.
Other popular festivals directed by the pharaoh himself were celebrated in honor of Hapi, god of the Nile, considered the donor of fertility.
Every year, then, during the first month of the Nile flood, a feast was celebrated in honor of Hathor and the statue of the goddess was carried to the sanctuary of Horus which represented the promised bridegroom.
In turn, the statue of Horus headed towards Hathor to make sure that the two met and the celebrations, characterized by dances and songs, lasted 13 days.
Every year, at the beginning of winter, the deity of Sokar, considered god of the earth, was celebrated.
The most sumptuous feasts, whose splendor is almost unimaginable, were then for the coronation of the new pharaoh.
Taken from atuttonet.it
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