“We have chosen the temple in Edfu as the central motif of this article because it is associated with a whole range of myths and descriptions of daily rituals left behind by the Egyptians.”
“According to the research conducted in this temple of Upper Egypt since Napoleon’s expedition in 1799, continued by the Frenchman Mariette, then Maxence de Rochemonteix, and finally completed by Emile Chassinat in 1934, Edfu represents a true source of knowledge about the sacred world in pharaonic Egypt. The translation of hieroglyphic texts carved into the walls, columns, and vaults of the temple in Edfu allows us to approach Egypt today with more direct and concrete elements in the exploration of unknown fruits of its civilization.”
“Myth of Creation”
“In different Egyptian cities and temples, the cosmogonic myth takes on different forms, adapted to specific historical periods, as well as the situation in each individual temple of Upper or Lower Egypt. According to Emile Chassinat’s translations, the builders of the last” The temple in Edfu, the one we can see now (whose construction began with Nectanebo II and continued throughout the entire Ptolemaic period), used texts taken from the ancient libraries of the first dynasties and transcribed them onto the walls, columns, and even the ceilings of this temple, although many of them were no longer understandable to the priests of that time.
Here is one of the existing translations: In the endless primordial ocean, two beings will announce creation; the first is Oua, “the Distant,” the Great Bird that circles over the waters in the original space. Suddenly, the Great Bird stops in the sky and swiftly turns, making large, noiseless circles, thus calming the turbulent water surface. Under its sharp gaze, the waters gradually calm and become clear. Then, on the calm water surface, a green dot appears: a piece of land covered in reeds – the first hill or the first natural boat. From it, a shoot rises towards the sky, offering the Sacred Bird the first blade.
When the Bird descended from the heights, from the depths, a moan rang out. He saw Aá, the other creator, and contributed to calming the turbulent waters. Gradually, around the first piece of land, he built the first shores, and sand and mud banks emerged on the surface. When the earth was formed, between the sky and water, it solidified according to the ideas of the two creators about the elements: space was organized, sacred land on the coastal bank was surrounded by walls. The hostile serpent was defeated in battle, and the gods established themselves in the first sacred places of the created world. Among them, Horus, the falcon with colorful feathers, descendant of the great First Bird, would become the Lord of Edfu.
Horus’ figure is encountered throughout the temple in various forms; in human form with a falcon head, as a sun disk with two large wings, or as a stone bird whose gaze cannot be endured, with powerful claws and wings full of strength.
His first temples disappeared many millennia ago. As we can glimpse from the cosmogonic myths, they were simple huts surrounded by a wooden fence, a symbol of the first creation. We know nothing about the temples made of brick and stone that followed later, except for a few ruins of a pillar that remained from the New Kingdom, above which the current Ptolemaic temple was built.
Opening of the Ptolemaic temple in Edfu
An engraved inscription describes the public celebration on the day when, as one Egyptian saying goes, at the end of the first stage of temple construction, the temple was handed over to its Lord, Horus, with the aim of allowing the sacred Falcon to enter:
The city was in celebration, joy in hearts and enthusiasm in the streets; the crowd that the people’s joy caused spilled over into the squares, and the alleys filled with excitement. There was more food than sand on the shore, plenty of bread, as much as there is grain from one harvest, cattle of all breeds were sacrificed, and there were as many as swarms of locusts, birds of all kinds atop the altars, and the smoke from the altars rose up to the sky, wine flowed through the streets, as if the Nile had overflowed from its t oka. The city was celebrating, adorned with flowers. Priests dressed in fine linen, and the king’s subjects covered in jewelry… The young ones were laughing joyfully as they drank, and the ladies were more beautiful than ever. It was impossible to sleep until late morning…
Horus, seeing the magnificent building that was built for him from the sky, attended the celebration that followed its opening. When the ceremonies gave life and meaning to all the divine representations in the temple, God descended from the heavenly realms and came to live in the castle that was reserved for him. From that moment on, the temple was ready to fulfill its sacred role.
The Egyptian temple was not a place of prayer for the people. The people probably never crossed certain boundaries. The temple was a space closed off to the profane world, and only the priests who served God visited it.
Everything was organized so that Egyptian temples would primarily be holy places, dedicated to the actual presence of the God they were intended for. and whose soul, Ba, descended from the heavenly realms to breathe life into the statue. This place was meant to be protected from everything that comes from the outside, from any impurity that could weaken the divine significance of the temple or cause the deity to leave that place.
In Egypt, priests had to ceremonially ensure the presence of the deity in the temple by feeding it, clothing it, and treating it as a being that resides in that place. In return, the gods ensured the maintenance of the existence of the entire world and all beings as determined by creation.
As a sanctuary of God on earth and a true fortress where his divine essence is preserved, the temple is a place where the integrity of the world can be preserved through certain rituals. As a result, the Egyptian temple was much more than what a church can represent to a Christian or a mosque to a Muslim. For today’s believer, God exists regardless of whether they pray to him or not, regardless of whether the individual engages with him or not; however, for the Egyptians, The absence of a temple or the lack of worship meant an inevitable end to the organized world.
The Ritual in the Temple
The rituals represented the daily expression of worship in the temple, and they were very complex. To better understand them, one should know that for an Egyptian, the deity was present in the sanctuary through its soul or Ba. His statue was not an ordinary statue; it was the bearer of the actual presence. The purpose of the daily rituals was to receive and retain this divine power that descended to Earth. The maintenance of this power should also be understood in a more concrete sense.
Three procedures in the ritual dedicated to the deity corresponded to the main points of the sun’s movement: sunrise, noon, and sunset.
The morning service began very early, before the eastern sky was covered in mist. Bread had to be made, animals sacrificed, and sacrificial food prepared for the deity; before dawn, a double procession entered the temple: one through the eastern side doors carrying the sacrificial food, and the other through the main entrance carrying the bodies of the sacrificed animals. Through the west side doors, carrying water from the temple well. The double procession would regroup in the central part and head towards the sanctuary.
The opening of the sanctuary was a solemn moment in which light replaced the darkness of the night, when the sun god truly appeared on the horizon. The carriers placed offerings on the altars in the hall before the sanctuary, priests sprinkled them with water and censed them with incense, and then the lower priests withdrew, leaving the final act to the highest-ranking priests.
Priests gathered in front of the sanctuary would sing the morning hymn: Wake up in peace, o great God, wake up calm. The high priest entered the sanctuary, broke the clay seal closing the nave, and opened the two doors of the chapel, exposing the divine statue to the light, symbolically offering his soul to it. Then he filled a bowl with sacrificial offerings, the same ones he had previously placed in front of the statue. At the same time, other temple gods, whose sanctuaries were arranged in the Hall of the Ennead, also received their morning offerings. The food was offered. After being offered to the gods, these sacrificial offerings were taken back and re-offered on the altars of deceased kings and high officials who had the right to be represented in the temple and who, thanks to these rituals, could prolong their lives even in the afterlife; in the end, the sacrificial offerings were returned to where they were made and distributed as food for temple officials. After the sacrificial offerings, the statue of the god was washed, dressed in the finest fabrics, groomed, and combed. Finally, ritual decorations were placed on it, it was sprinkled with holy water, and incense was burned. Then the sanctuary was closed, and the priest exited the sanctuary walking backward so as not to turn his back on the deity, erasing the traces left by his steps on the fine sand that covered the stone slabs of the temple. The sacred darkness and divine silence returned to the sanctuary.
At noon, it was time for a very short service: the sanctuary remained closed, and the priest sprinkled and burned incense. about the only intact other gods and chapels that surrounded the shrine.
At night, the service was performed around the shrine, which was not opened. Sacrificial offerings were made, wine was poured, incense was burned, and then the bowls with offerings were removed and finally, the chapel doors were closed.
With the sunset, the rituals were coming to an end. The temple regained its peace, although the priest, familiar with the celestial constellations, remained on duty in order to announce the exact hour and signal the start of the protection ritual, somewhat like a muezzin calling to prayer from the minaret.
The daily ritual was simultaneously connected to both the material and the spiritual aspect. Everything was put into motion in order to retain this essential part of the divine being that descended among humans at one moment. The people who served the deity felt very well the spiritual significance of divine service and the sacred character of the temple.
Main festivals
The Egyptian calendar contains incredibly diverse A large number of holidays throughout the year; some of them are national, others local, and usually lasted for four or five days, breaking the monotony of daily rituals.
Each holiday had its own ceremonies, accompanied by a procession, which allowed the faithful to enjoy the divine presence for a while. It was a moment when the deity pronounced prophecies and administered justice in disputes among people.
The role of these holidays was very specific, although they are not given much importance in books on Egyptology. The holiday was not celebrated to commemorate an event or to remember something that happened on a specific day, but rather to repeat certain actions necessary for the creation or maintenance of the world. They were as effective as the original act, as they periodically repeated a moment from the past so that its effects would not be lost over time.
We will try to understand this by describing the basic holidays of the liturgical year in Edfu.
Holidays On New Year’s Eve
This celebration, which took place at the transition from the old to the new Egyptian year, is particularly interesting because it allows us to see the difference between our understanding of time and the Egyptian understanding of time.
Our understanding of time is essentially “linear,” which means that events in our era always unfold in the same way, like a never-ending movie, where periods are measured by counting the years continuously. For the Egyptians, this time is interrupted by cycles, and each cycle can bring either chaos like the one that existed before the creation of the world, or the birth of a new cycle similar to the one that just ended. However, the transition from one cycle to another is never automatic and carries with it great danger, so help is needed to ensure a smooth transition.
The end of the year was marked by five ominous and dangerous days before the birth of the new year. These are days of uncertainty that precede the rise of the Nile’s water level and the reign of disasters. In the same sense, the death of a ruler is a dangerous change. and situations where the balance of the world is in danger. The changing of months or seasons can also be dangerous, as the beginning of any new cycle is uncertain.
This uncertainty of transitioning into a new cycle also concerns the divine presence on Earth. Horus is a resident of Heaven, who flies through the sky as a divine Falcon, or shines upon the Earth from afar as the Sun. His earthly statue, residing in a sanctuary, would be meaningless imitation if the soul of the deity (Ba) had not left inaccessible spaces to breathe life into this earthly vessel.
At the crucial moment at the end of the year, the kingdom’s terrible state clearly shows that the gods have practically abandoned Earth: the ground is cracked, vegetation is burnt, stifling winds blow from the south, and epidemics spread death; even the Nile, deep in its lower course and jagged, seems to abruptly calm down, symbolizing the death of every form of life.
This is the moment for the celebration of the new year, started four days before the end of the year. which ends and continues all the way until the fourth day of the new year. Its goal is to enable the divine soul (Ba) to descend to earth again and “fill” the statues with supernatural power, so that these vessels of powerful energy can become active and effective again during the new period.
This important ritual was also called “solarization” or “energization” of the divine statues.
Feast of Victory
Along the shores of the sacred lake, we encounter the protagonists of the festival called “Horus’s victory”.
According to various traditions and cultures, the sun has always faced a number of enemies; this battle, depending on the place, took on different forms.
In general, all traditions evoke the struggle between the first generation of gods, from which the solar god manages to emerge unharmed, and which ends with a conflict in which the human race is in danger of complete extinction. Far from the memories of primordial times, there is still enmity in the world, and the battle between the forces of darkness and light, which accompanies every dawn, can last. to place the advancement of the solar boat and make it sink.
This daily battle of the Sun against enemy forces is depicted through religious ceremonies in temples to prevent the constant threat of the god Seth and all his incarnations.
In Edfu, the Sun’s enemy takes the form of a hippopotamus that Horus-Ra must pierce with ten harpoons, each harpoon in a different part of its body. The reliefs on the temple walls depict this battle.
There is a place on the sacred lake with a symbolic representation of the battle between Horus and a priest wearing a hippopotamus mask. In ten depictions, his figure is pierced by Horus’ harpoon.
This solemn ceremony established the annual victory of the God and consecrated the temporary defeat of the evil forces.
The Festival of Divine Union
Even Egyptian deities have families and triads in which a son dedicates the unity of the god and goddess. In Edfu, Horus’ wife is the goddess Hathor. She is attributed with universal love and joy, and at that time her main temple was located to the north. In the city of Edfu, in Dendera.
The festival of the divine couple took place at the end of the year, in the month of May, and various episodes of this celebration lasted for twenty-one days, fifteen of which were in Edfu.
Once a year, the goddess Hathor would leave her temple and travel by boat to Edfu to meet her husband Horus. For four days, before the full moon in the month of Epifi, in May, Hathor would be carried on a boat for a grand procession, first on the shoulders of her servants, surrounded by priests, temple scribes, and worshipers. She would go towards the port where a larger boat awaited her for a voyage on the Nile.
It was a mesmerizing sight. Colorful boats with white sails sailing, and on the shores, the cheers of joy resembled a song of life.
Horus awaited Hathor in the northern part of Edfu, in a small chapel built by the Nile. The meeting of the deities would cause indescribable joy among the population who had gathered from different regions. Amidst the singing, accompanied by the rhythm of a small drum, and with wine and beer, In the excitement, people would begin to move in circles, creating lively groups of about fifteen people. A series of rituals, solemn processions, sacrifices, and “reviving” of statues accompanied by litany were performed daily.
One of the most important processions for a better understanding of the meaning of this celebration was the one where Horus and Hathor were taken towards the western side of the desert, near the necropolis, where the tombs of the “dead gods,” the first creators of the universe, who were inherited by the current generations of gods, were located. This homage to the ancestors, as well as the daily rituals (leading four bulls to the sacrificial area and releasing messenger birds to the four corners of the world, invoking the harvest), connected Osiris’ cult and funeral rites in Egypt, as stated by Blackman and Fairman.
The Holy Covenant in Edfu is one of the ancient festivities that we can easily understand, although it consists of complex elements.
Mystery of the divine birth
Although slightly less famous, the celebration of the Mystery of the divine birth The divine birth ceremony deserves to be mentioned here: primarily because it allows us to understand the meaning of small temples called “mammisis” that we find next to large temples, and secondly, because it clarifies the meaning of the sacred transmission of pharaonic covenants.
This ceremony has its roots in the oldest Egyptian history. According to depictions of Creation in the texts, the role of the deity was to provide the elements necessary for the order of the world, but it was the pharaoh who had to ensure the maintenance of order and protect the Creation given to him by the gods. Thus, the successor of the earthly Kingdom, also the leader of the people, was the “son” of the creator god.
Although this ritual changed over time, as did the expression of theological thinking, in the “mammisis” of the last period, we find its description.
For the Egyptians, the annual renewal of the incarnation of the divine Son was of fundamental importance in order to maintain order on earth and in the world, and thus the pharaoh had a divine mark. compounds of Heaven and Earth, and became their essence.
The Consecration of the Falcon
The last celebration we will mention is the “Consecration of the Falcon,” which was performed south of the Horus temple, opposite the “mammisija”.
Most representations indicating divine presence in the West will always be a subject of admiration and misunderstanding. We must understand that divinity, in its essence, is unknown and at the same time foreign on the earth, but one of its elements, its Ba, which is translated as “soul”, comes to live on the earth, in the images of sanctuaries, crypts, as well as in various depictions on temple walls.
These depictions are not the only place where the divine soul can embody itself, it can also be embodied in various animals, whose different characteristics allow its presence to be unmistakably recognized, such as the bull Apis, the ram of Amun, or the cow of Hathor, the crocodile of Sobek, or the ibis of Thoth. In Edfu, Horus was embodied in the body of a living falcon, which was chosen every year from many falcons he spent the whole year being enthroned and celebrated in a dedicated cage.
The selection took place in the “Temple of the Falcon”; the statue of the god was taken for a while from the sanctuary and brought on a litter to examine the candidates and make the selection. When the falcon was chosen, it was shown to the people on the so-called “balcony of appearance”, at the top of the monumental entrance. This was followed by a coronation, and the end of the ceremony was marked by celebration. Then the statue of Horus was returned to the sanctuary, and the living falcon remained in its temple.
Although there is not enough written evidence about this, this ritual of enthroning a sacred animal was associated with earthly power. It was a confirmation of the divine source of that authority, which continued the line of the ancient pharaohs.
This, as well as other described ceremonies, conveys the idea of the need to preserve order in the world and the effectiveness that is necessary both for the institution of the pharaoh and for the balance of society and the country.
Therefore, nothing is acquired definitively: everything needs to be “revived” or renewed in every cycle. Life should be in perfect harmony with the laws of nature.