Early Dynastic Egypt (43 page)

only ‘appearances of the dual king’. One king, possibly Netjerikhet or his immediate successor, celebrated this event three times in his first four years on the throne. The first occurrence, in the king’s first regnal year, may represent the actual coronation ceremony; the repetitions of the ritual in successive years were perhaps intended to buttress the power of the new ruler after his predecessor’s death. It is possible that the change of dynasty following the death of Khasekhemwy necessitated a greater frequency of royal ritual than usual in the early years of the new reign, to legitimise the king in the eyes of his people and the gods. It is often difficult to identify precisely the royal rituals depicted in Early Dynastic inscriptions. The ritual appearances of the king were probably connected with the Sed-festival. It is noteworthy that the Sed-festival reliefs in the Sun Temple of Niuserra show the distinctive double pavilion associated with the Sed-festival but also the single pavilions for rites specifically associated either with Upper Egypt or with Lower Egypt (Millet 1990:57).

The Sed-festival

Undoubtedly the pre-eminent festival of divine kingship was the Sedfestival (Hornung and Staehelin 1974). Despite its great antiquity and long survival—its origins reach back into the Predynastic period and it was still celebrated by the Ptolemaic kings—there is surprisingly little explicit evidence for the details of the Sed-festival: where, when and how often it was celebrated, the precise order of events and their symbolic significance. Even the origin of the name is unclear (cf. K.Martin 1984:782; Gohary 1992:1–2). The Step Pyramid complex of Netjerikhet is the most informative contemporary source for the form and structure of the Sed-festival in the Early Dynastic period. The various components of the Sed-festival court provided the king with all the necessary spaces and buildings for the eternal celebration of the festival.

Many of the supposed representations of the Sed-festival often quoted for the first three dynasties in fact show other royal ceremonies or even royal statues. None the less, at least two Early Dynastic kings, Den and Qaa, are known to have celebrated a Sed- festival, whilst another, Anedjib, may have done so (Hornung and Staehelin 1974:86). An ivory statuette of an anonymous First Dynasty king from Abydos shows the ruler wearing the tight-fitting Sed-festival robe. Stone vessel fragments from beneath the Step Pyramid—which may date to the Second Dynasty, perhaps the reign of Ninetjer (Helck 1979)—seem to mention a Sed-festival. Netjerikhet is sometimes said to have celebrated a Sed-festival in his lifetime (F.D.Friedman 1995:8, quoting Strudwick 1985:4), but there are no contemporary inscriptions to support this. An ebony label of Den from Abydos (Petrie 1900: pls XI.14, XV.16) is usually cited as an early depiction of the Sed-festival. However, although many of the attributes of the Sed-festival—such as the tight-fitting robe and the king’s run between territorial markers—are shown, the absence of the throne-dais with double staircase, an essential element of the Sed-festival, may be decisive. Rather than showing the Sed-festival, the label may depict the ceremony of
h t nswt-bỉty
(Millet 1990:56; F.D.Friedman 1995:7–8). The throne dais with twin staircases is shown on another, fragmentary label of Den from Abydos (Petrie 1900: pl. XIV.12); since his reign is known to have been a long one, it is almost certain that Den celebrated a Sed-festival. At the end of the First Dynasty, Qaa also enjoyed a long reign and apparently celebrated two Sed-festivals: a fragment of a siltstone bowl from beneath

the Step Pyramid mentions the king’s second Sed-festival (Lacau and Lauer 1959:12, pl. 8 no. 41).

In later tradition the Sed-festival was celebrated in the king’s thirtieth regnal year. For example, on the Rosetta Stone the Egyptian expression
hb-sd,
‘Sed-festival’, is rendered in Greek as
triakontaeteris
‘thirty-year festival’ (Godron 1990:183). However, there are definite exceptions to this rule from the Dynastic period (Hornung and Staehelin 1974:54–6). Some kings who are known to have reigned for more than thirty years never, apparently, celebrated a Sed-festival (for example, Senusret III), whilst others (for example, Akhenaten) did so well before their thirtieth regnal year (Gohary 1992). The reasons which lay behind each decision to celebrate the Sed-festival remain obscure, but ‘it is unlikely that a mere counting of years was the decisive factor’ (Frankfort 1948:79). The celebration may have depended entirely upon the health of the reigning king (Godron 1990:184), Sed-festivals celebrated before the thirtieth regnal year representing the actions of elderly or otherwise infirm kings (Gohary 1992:4).

The Egyptian expression
hb-sd
has often been translated as ‘jubilee’. As we have seen, this may be inappropriate given the evidence for its somewhat irregular celebration, at least in the early periods of Egyptian history. The significance of the Sed-festival clearly went much deeper than a simple celebration of the king’s longevity. In essence, it was a ritual of rejuvenation (Barta 1975; Gohary 1992:1), by which the powers of the reigning king, both magical and physical, as well as his relationship with the gods and his people, were renewed (Frankfort 1948:79; K.Martin 1984:783). The surviving evidence for the Sed-festival from the Early Dynastic period indicates a complex series of rituals whose symbolism goes to the very heart of kingship ideology. The Sed-festival court on the eastern side of the Step Pyramid complex preserves a series of shrines, built in stone but modelled on timber and matting constructions. These temporary structures seem to have been erected at the site of the Sed-festival to house the images of provincial deities (Frankfort 1948:80). The deities of Upper Egypt assembled on one side of the court, housed in shrines of the quintessential Upper Egyptian type
(pr-wr).
The deities of Lower Egypt gathered on the opposite side of the court, housed in the curved-topped shrines characteristic of Lower Egypt (
pr-n r/pr nw
). The various gods and goddesses from important sites throughout Egypt seem to have gathered together to pay homage to the king and to legitimise his authority over the whole of Egypt. For his part, the king probably reciprocated, paying his own homage to these deities, renewing the bond between the kingship and the divine sphere which guaranteed Egypt’s continuing prosperity.

Another part of the festival emphasised the king’s secular hold on power: the ritual of territorial claim, known as ‘encompassing the field’. Symbolically, it fulfilled much the same function as the circuit of the wall at Memphis, carried out by the king at his coronation (Decker 1992:34). In the great court which stretches before Netjerikhet’s Step Pyramid, and again in the smaller court in front of the ‘House of the South’, two sets of horseshoe-shaped markers or ‘cairns’ delimit a ritual ‘field’. At Saqqara these markers are arranged in pairs; on other Early Dynastic representations, such as the Narmer macehead and the ebony label of Den, they appear in sets of three. Oriented on a north- south axis, they clearly symbolise the territorial limits of the king’s realm, the ‘field’ between them representing the whole of Egypt (Spencer 1978:53). Clad in the tight- fitting Sed-festival robe, wearing the red, white or double crown, and carrying a flail in

one hand and a baton-like object in the other, the king ran or strode between the two sets of markers, reasserting his claim to the land of Egypt. We know from later references that the baton-like object is the
mks,
a container which held the
ỉmỉt-pr
(F.D.Friedman 1995:24). This seems to represent a title deed, expressing the king’s legal possession of the territory of Egypt. In origin, the Sed-festival run may also have served to prove the king’s continuing physical potency (Decker 1992:34).

The act of ‘encompassing the field’ has been interpreted as the central ceremony of the entire festival, since it re-dedicated ‘the field’ (representing Egypt) to the gods and renewed the legitimacy of the king’s rule (Frankfort 1948:86). However, representations of the Sed-festival, in particular the hieroglyph used to symbolise the event, indicate that another part of the proceedings stood at the symbolic and ritual heart of the celebration. This was the dual enthronement of the king, once as king of Lower Egypt and once as king of Upper Egypt, in the distinctive Sed-festival pavilion (K.Martin 1984:782). It is this pavilion with twin staircases which forms the hieroglyph for
hb-sd.
The base of just such a pavilion has been preserved in the Sed-festival court of the Step Pyramid complex (Plate 6.1). The king would appear twice on the dais, once in the red crown and once in the white crown. For both enthronements, the king wore the long, close-fitting Sed- festival robe. The symbolism of the ritual is unambiguous: it recalled the coronation ceremony and proclaimed the duality of kingship.

In later depictions of the festival (for example, Kaiser 1971), a special building erected near the pavilion served as a robing-room, where the king could change his regalia (Frankfort 1948:83). The Step Pyramid complex suggests that a number of different buildings were needed during the course of the festival. All were probably light structures of reeds, matting and wooden poles, forming a temporary encampment for the duration of the ceremonies. In addition to, or adjoining, the robing-room, was a festival palace, which provided temporary accommodation for the king. The Step Pyramid complex also comprises two further ceremonial buildings, dubbed the ‘House of the North’ and the ‘House of the South’. They may represent the buildings in which the king held audiences or received the homage of visiting dignitaries, in his dual capacity as king of Lower Egypt and king of Upper Egypt, respectively. It is likely that members of the royal family and the highest officials of the administration attended the Sed-festival: to reaffirm their bonds of loyalty to the king, to celebrate the rejuvenation of his divine and secular authority, and to witness the renewal of his contract with Egypt and the gods. The architecture of the Step Pyramid complex emphasises the importance of the Sed-festival to Early Dynastic kingship. It also demonstrates that the festival had become firmly established as an integral part of royal ideology at an early period of Egyptian history (K.Martin 1984:784). The Sed-festival is crucial for our understanding of early kingship, the component rituals illustrating the key features of kingship ideology (Frankfort 1948:79).

Plate 6.1
The emblem of the Sed-festival. A throne platform with two staircases, situated at the southern end of the smaller courtyard which lies on the eastern side of the Step Pyramid complex of Netjerikhet at Saqqara (author’s photograph). A platform of this kind featured during the ceremonial of the Sed-festival and was used as the hieroglyph for the festival itself.

Other rituals

At least three other royal ceremonies are recorded on monuments of the Early Dynastic period, including two from the very dawn of Egyptian history.

Opening the canal

The Scorpion macehead, dating from the end of the Predynastic period, shows the king with a hoe in one hand apparently performing a ritual connected with irrigation. As the conduit for divine beneficence towards the land of Egypt, the king was responsible for the continued fertility of the land and for the success of the annual inundation. The creation and maintenance of irrigation were of crucial importance to Egypt’s agricultural productivity. An early First Dynasty slate dish in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bears an inscription which may also relate to an irrigation ritual: ‘the opening of the lake “the striding of the gods” in Memphis’ (Hoffman 1980:313).

Hunting the hippopotamus

It has been suggested (Millet 1990:58) that the Scorpion macehead originally portrayed a second ceremony, the harpooning of a hippopotamus (Figure 6.6). This is not depicted directly on the surviving portions of the macehead, but may be hinted at by other elements of the decorative scheme, notably the marshland environment and the group of female ‘dancers’. In the mythical version of the hippopotamus hunt described on the walls of the Edfu temple, the ritual involves a similar chorus of female musicians. The conjunction of these two rituals—opening the canal and spearing the hippopotamus— occurs in regnal year x+8 of Den on the Palermo Stone. This recorded instance of
stt h 3b,
‘spearing the hippopotamus’, has been linked with a seal-impression of Den showing the king wrestling with a hippopotamus (Petrie 1901: pl. VII.5–6). Alternatively, the two actions, spearing and wrestling, may be unconnected and may represent two distinct rituals. A more plausible link may be made between the entry on the Palermo Stone and a fragmentary wooden label from Den’s tomb at Abydos. This shows a male figure, perhaps the king, thrusting a two-pronged spear into a rounded object which may represent a pool (Petrie 1901: pl. VII.11). In later times, the ritual spearing of a hippopotamus was imbued with powerful ideological connotations.