464 festivals: The Middle East formed in the temple Such calendars were probably copied from liturgical papyrus rolls kept in the temple archives Dating to the Old Kingdom, the earliest known festival calendar is inscribed on the walls of the Fift h Dynasty sun temple of King Niuserre (ca 2450 b.c.e.) Private tombs of the Old Kingdom also included brief feast lists Temple calendars indicate that the Egyptians celebrated annual festivals Whether a festival lasted for one day or for several days, each had a fi xed date within the Egyptian civic calendar, occurring on the same day, or over the same period, every year Festival calendars also include brief accounts of the major religious events celebrated within the confines of a particular temple Wep Renpet (New Year’s Day) was celebrated on the first day of the civic calendar (first day of the first month of the year, or first month of Akhet, day 1) This festival marked the New Year and celebrated the notions of rejuvenation and rebirth The festival of Wagy was originally a lunar festival that was celebrated on the 18th day of the first month of the civic calendar (first month of Akhet, day 18) This festival was funerary in nature, but evidence for it comes from both major cult centers and private tombs From the Fourth Dynasty (2575–2465 b.c.e.) onward, this festival is included in feast lists inscribed in private tombs Because the civic and lunar dates for this festival did not always coincide, the Egyptians eventually celebrated this festival on two separate occasions: once on its firmly set date within the civic calendar and at another time according to its actual lunar date The Opet festival, which was first celebrated in the reign of Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca 1470 b.c.e.), lasted up to 27 days during the Twentieth Dynasty (ca 1196– 1070 b.c.e.) This New Kingdom festival took place in the second month of the civic calendar The Opet festival included a procession during which the pharaoh-elect traveled to the temple of Amun at Luxor, where he would receive emblems of kingship from his divine father During the course of this festival the pharaoh was identified with Horus, the divine ruler of the living, and was officially crowned as king of Egypt Because of its importance in asserting the power and divinity of the Egyptian king, this festival held special significance in royal ideology and was closely supervised by state officials The festival of the god Sokar, or Choiak, was celebrated during the fourth month of the civic year This ancient festival was dedicated to the cult of Osiris, the divine ruler of the afterworld This festival, which was included in Old Kingdom private feast lists, linked Osiris both to the city of Memphis and to the god Sokar Originally celebrated over a period of six days, this festival lasted for almost an entire month during the Late Period (712–332 b.c.e.) Since the Egyptian civic calendar comprised three seasons of four months each, the feast of Sokar served as a celebratory conclusion to the fi rst season of the year (Akhet, or Inundation) By day 26 of the Sokar feast, Osiris was considered officially dead, and a period of four days marked by intense sadness and mourning followed Nehebkau was a festival celebrated on the first day of the fift h month Similar to a New Year’s Day festival and occurring just five days after the festival of Sokar, this feast became another occasion to celebrate rebirth In the interim five-day period, the king, who was identified with Osiris in his death, was reborn as the living Horus Because the concepts commemorated during this festival were very similar to those celebrated on the first day of the civic year, this festival shared many rituals with the Wep Renpet festival, the original New Year Day’s celebration The festival of Min, the god of fertility, was celebrated at the beginning of the harvest season (Shemu); the festival of Min occurred in the ninth civic month The date of this predominately agricultural festival was set according to the lunar calendar During the course of this archaic festival, the king would harvest the first sheaf of grain and would ritually act as the provider and sustainer of his people The Beautiful Feast of the Valley was enacted during the 10th month of the year Dating to the Middle Kingdom (ca 2040–1640 b.c.e.), this Theban festival became very important during the New Kingdom A major part of celebrating this festival involved a boat procession during which the statues of the divine Theban triad Amun, Mut, and Khonsu were ferried across the Nile to the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri on the western bank of the Nile Because the city of the dead was also located on the western bank, this festival became an occasion to visit the tombs of deceased family members Because festival calendars are primarily preserved on temple and tomb walls, it should come as no surprise that the extant evidence is biased toward official religious celebrations, providing us with very little information on nonreligious civic festivals One very important noncultic festival was a royal jubilee celebration, known as the Heb-Sed festival Celebrated throughout the Dynastic Period, the Heb-Sed festival is first mentioned on ivory tags dating to the reign of King Den of the First Dynasty (ca 2900 b.c.e.) and may have originated in a predynastic tradition During the course of this celebration the king performed a series of physically strenuous rituals, possibly to prove his virility While in theory the Heb-Sed was celebrated every 30 years, the evidence suggests that Egyptian rulers may have held it more frequently Representations of the Heb-Sed festival are found in the sun temple of Niuserre, in the tomb of Kheruef at Thebes, in the temple of Amenhotep III at Soleb in Nubia, in the temple of Akhenaten in East Karnak, in the Twenty-second Dynasty (945–712 b.c.e.) temple of Osorkon II at Bubastic, and from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 b.c.e.) THE MIDDLE EAST BY KAREN RADNER In the ancient Near East there was no working week culminating in a fi xed Sabbath or Sunday to provide time for rest and relaxation as well as worship Instead, the course of daily