Available from Galerie Gabrie

 

Lessons from the Pharaoh’s Tomb, Part Two

Each year in Ancient Egypt, a magnificent event took place which was a most enduring spectacle called The Festival of Opet in Thebes the present day Luxor. The Pharaoh and his queen led a procession of one and half miles from Luxor Temple to Karnak with offerings to the gods to ensure rejuvenation and rebirth of the Pharaoh’s powers. 

For the procession, statues of Mut and Khonsu were borne aloft on barques carried on priests’ shoulders to a small harbor on the Nile. They were then loaded onto decorated barges and hauled to the river’s center to tow upriver to the Luxor Temple. The second part of the ceremony took place at that time and three weeks later, it was done again in reverse. The most amazing part of this event was the sheer magnitude usually accommodating 80,000 or more citizens.

Festivities included feasting, dancing, acrobatics, music, subjects included here in my representation of the Festival of Opet. While departing Egypt in 2009, I found this splendid lute-like oud at an airport shop, and because of the beautiful color variations and lovely shape, it is a perfect prop for this painting.

Galerie Gabrie, Pasadena