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

SPACE AND SCENERY | 293
Opet Festival scenes. However, the unusual detachment of the
temple from the rest of the Karnak temple complex casts doubts
about that.
Here another problem has to arise: Could the festival have
been hold in buildings, which already depicted its performance? It
turns out that the presence of festive scenes does not indicate that
the real celebrations of the festival were held there. This is true for
the tombs, in which some festivals represented on their walls surely
could not be celebrated there. For instance, the tomb of Kheruef
decorated with the scenes of Amenhotep III’s jubilees was certainly
not a place for even a part of their celebration. 68 Perhaps by depicting
the festive scenes the master of the tomb wished to demonstrate
his special position at the court of pharaoh, who allowed him
to take part in the festival, and the feeling of pride granted by this
participation. This is also true about the scenes of the Opet Festival
from Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari. It is known
that the festival was not celebrated in this temple, and the festive
scenes had purely informative and symbolic meaning, demonstrating
the relationship between the festive program and the posthumous
fate of the king. Could we say the same about the scenes
from Akhmenu – the temple, which was strangely detached from
the rest of the Karnak temple area?
As it has been said earlier, moving from the west to the east,
along the sun’s path, the procession reached the VI th pylon and
then turned to the south, to the Akhmenu temple. Only after entering
the Festival Hall it could go on moving to the east, to the Sanctuary
of Thutmose III. 69 It turns out that within his temple Thutmose
III made a separate path for the sun-god, thus proclaiming
his exclusive right to accompany the god and accept his energy at
the sunrise.
On the other hand, the detached character of Akhmenu
means that the temple had no direct connection with the rites conducted
outside. If so, the scenes of the Opet Festival from Akhmenu
had mostly informative meaning and no relationship with the
68 PORTER – MOSS (1960) 298–299; THE TOMB OF KHERUEF
(1980).
69 PORTER – MOSS (1972) 120, plan XII (2), room XXX;
BARGUET (1962) 197–198.