“semitisches pantheon”. eine “männliche tyche” - MOSAIKjournal.com

SPACE AND SCENERY | 283
relief scene from the IV th pylon of the Karnak temple which pictures
Thutmose III worshiping Amun-Re at “the ninth hour of the
day”. 13 Another example is the hall of the Luxor temple with twelve
pillars presumably symbolizing the hours of the sun’s day journey. 14
Therefore the way-stations built by Hatshepsut between Karnak
and Luxor, each having an entrance from the west and exit
from the east, could symbolize the night hours and the valleys of
Duat. The entry of the solar bark into the chapel probably symbolized
the entry of Re into one of the night valleys of Duat. At the
end of the rites in the chapel the bark emerged from the building;
this meant, as we suggest, the lucky passage of Re through the valley.
Accepting the parallel between the Opet Festival route and the
night travel of Re, we may think that the temple of Luxor, where
the procession finally entered, was associated with the seventh
valley of Duat – the realm of the god Osiris and the place of struggle
between the gods and the snake Apophis, the personification of
evil and chaos.
Coming back to the problem of orientation of the Opet Festival
scenes in the temple space, the scenes from the mortuary temple
of Hatshepsut and the Akhmenu temple are aligned on the
north-south axis and seem to be associated with the king’s posthumous
travel to the north – the place of circumpolar stars where
the deceased wished to live forever. This leads to the suggestion
that the symbolic program of the Opet Festival was related to the
posthumous fate of the pharaoh. Another proof to this assumption
is the presence of Osirian motives in the reliefs of the Red Chapel
and the Deir el-Bahari temple: The Osiride statues of Hatshepsut,
which flank the entrance to each bark station, and the statues of
Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, wearing the Heb-sed 15 robe and
13 PORTER – MOSS (1972) 88 (239); BARGUET (1962) 336–
340. 14 BRUNNER (1977) 81; BRYAN (1992) 86.
15 Sed Festival (jubilee) – the ritual of the renewal of king’s
forces and power that took place in year 30 of the reign and after
that each third year: cf. МАТЬЕ (1956) 7–28; UPHILL (1965) 365–
383. The royal figures wearing the Heb-sed robe (the cloth wrapping
the body from head to toe) resemble the mummified effigy of
Osiris: cf. LACAU – CHEVRIER (1977–1979) pl. 9; NAVILLE (1906)
pl. 125.