Etido

Could you know a god was passing without seeing him? During the Opet festival, Amun’s sacred image left Karnak with those of Mut and Khonsu. Their portable shrines travelled south to Luxor Temple, about three kilometres away, before returning home. Musicians and dancers accompanied the celebrations: sistra, drums, clapping hands and even acrobatic backflips appear in the surviving scenes. This divine visit filled the city with sound. The statue itself remained concealed within its shrine, yet the procession carried the god’s presence beyond his usual sanctuary. People could hear and follow a sacred journey even when they could not see the face at its centre. Amun could come close while remaining hidden. Do you think the ancient Egyptians felt his presence most strongly when the procession approached—or just after it had passed? Image: Amun-Min, painted relief from Thutmose III’s temple, Luxor Museum J.139. Photo: Marsupium / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0; square crop. creativecommons.org/licenses… #EgyptianMythology #Amun #AncientEgypt

What if the coffin closed around a sky? Nut could spread her wings across a coffin or stretch her body along the inside of its lid, directly above the person resting there. These images gave the burial a cosmic setting: the sky goddess herself enclosed and protected the deceased. Egyptians hoped to rise again through Nut, just as the sun returned from her body. Calling a coffin a mother made that hope intimate. The journey beyond death began inside a divine shelter, where a body could be cared for while another kind of life became possible. Even the space around the dead had a part to play. The coffin became a sky close enough to touch. Do you think an ancient Egyptian imagined Nut looking down from the heavens and from the painted lid at the same time? Art: Nut on Peftjaoeneith’s coffin, c. 650 BCE, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Photo: Rob Koopman / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0; cropped. creativecommons.org/licenses… #EgyptianMythology #Nut #AncientEgypt