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The Festivals of Osiris and Sokar in the Month of Khoiak:
The Evidence from Nineteenth Dynasty Royal Monuments at Abydos*

Katherine J. Eaton

(Tafel 5-6)

Abstract

There were three sets of processional equipment for Osiris and Sokar depicted on Nineteenth Dynasty royal
monuments at Abydos

- Sokar's /*e?w-barque; the ?Osiris Fetish,"1 associated with Osiris-Khentyimentiu;
and a barque carrying a bed, which resembles funerary boats depicted in vignettes to Book of the Dead

Chapter 1. Ptolemaic records of ritual describe three divine images to be made for the Festival of Osiris
-

Sokar-Osiris; Osiris-Khentyimentiu; and the divine members, a set of disembodied limbs. These sets

are representative of the processional equipment depicted on Nineteenth Dynasty Abydene monuments.

However, the layout and decorative program of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos strongly indicate that the

internal rites for Sokar's Festival were still independent of those for Osiris' Festival at Abydos, during the

reign of Seti I.

Auf den koniglichen Denkmalern der 19. Dynastie in Abydos waren drei Grupen von Prozessions

ausstattungen fur Osiris und Sokar dargestellt: Sokars Henu-Barke, der Osirisfetisch, der mit Osiris

Khentyimentiu verbunden ist und eine Barke, die mit einem Bert ausgestattet ist und die der Bahre, die in

den Vignetten von Tb 1 ahnelt. Ptolomaische Aufzeichnungen des Rituals beschreiben drei gottliche

Bildnisse, die fur das Fest der Osiris angefertigt wurden: Sokar-Osiris, Osisris-Khentyimentiu und die

gottlichen Gebeine, eine Ansammlung von korperlosen GliedmaBen. Diese drei Garnituren sind

charakteristisch ftir die Prozessionsausstattungen auf den Denkmalern der 19. Dynastie aus Abydos. Die

Raumgestaltung und das Dekorationsprogramm des Tempels von Sethos I. in Abydos weisen jedoch
deutlich darauf hin, dass die Riten fur das Sokar-Fest in Abydos wahrend der Regierungszeit von Sethos I.

immer noch unabhangig von denen fur das Osiris-Fest waren.

Each year in the month of Khoiak there was a festival during which the god Osiris was

brought from his temple (hwt-ntr wsir hnti-imntiw) to his tomb at Peker (pkr), probably the
area known today as Umm el-Qab (Fig. 1, ?Sacred Route"). By the Middle Kingdom2 the

ancient Egyptians had identified the tomb of the First Dynasty king Djer at Umm el-Qab

Thanks to the United States Information Agency which funded my research through a grant ad
ministered by the American Research Center in Egypt; to the IFA-Penn-Yale Expedition to Abydos,
which provided me with accommodations at Abydos; and to Ogden Goelet and Anne Weis, whose
comments were invaluable.

1
The term ?fetish" is sometimes used in a pejorative way to imply that the religious ideas surrounding
the image in question were in some way ?primitive." I do not subscribe to this view. However, I use

the term ?Osiris Fetish" because it has long been used to describe a particular image associated with
Osiris' cult and changing the terminology now would be confusing. 2
This date is based on the types of pottery left as offerings near the tomb of Djer, see G. Dreyer, e.a.,
in: MDAIK 56, 2000, 117-118. Previously it was thought that little pottery dated prior to the New

Kingdom, see B. Kemp, ?Abydos", in: LA 1,37. A statue of Osiris on a bier that was found in this tomb

may date from the late Middle Kingdom, but the date is disputed, see A. Leahy, in: Or 46, 1977,
424-434, pis. 26-29.

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88 K.J. Eaton SAK 35

to depict it in relatively public areas as well.61 The Chapel of Ramesses I, where the fetish

is shown twice in the lower register of the west wall, probably served as a station for this

image. It appears again at the center of the top register on the east wall of the Central Hall

of the Osireion (decorated in the time of Merenptah), where the king offers to Osiris

Khentyimentiu, Re-Horakhte and a fourth, unidentified figure.62 The presence of Re

Horakhte again suggests solar associations.

2.1.2 The Fetish in Boats

On the wall opposite that of the fetish scene in Osiris' Barque Chapel (Fig. 2) there is a

parallel scene with a processional barque (Fig. 7), identified by some as the nSmt-barque.63
Even Karlshausen, who believes that the nSmt-barque was a river barge, described this

processional barque as ?comme une neshemet en reduction." The nSmt-barque is easily
identified by its papyriform ends and by the image that it carried, the Osiris Fetish.64

According to Lavier, the nSmt-barque was associated with the gods triumphant return to the

temple.65 Anthes associated it with the ?Erste Auszug."66 That two completely contradictory

readings of the same material are possible underscores how vague these descriptions are.

Based on the textual descriptions, the nSmt-barque could have been either a river barge or

a processional barque, and indeed, in the New Kingdom it was depicted both on water67 and

with carrying poles.68 On the other hand, although the processions to Osiris' tomb at Peker

(Umm el-Qaab) and the cenotaph of Seti I (the Osireion) may have begun on water, there

is no evidence for canals leading to either site. Thus, most of both of these journeys would

61
All of the examples that I know of date to the New Kingdom or later. Several are in the British

Museum, most of unknown provenance (for example, BM 139, 141 and 161), at least one is almost

certainly from Abydos (BM 146), see BM Stelae 9, 1970, pis. XIX (BM 141), XX (BM 139) and
XLVII (BM 146) and BM Stelae 10, 1982 pis. 52-53 (BM 161). None of the Middle Kingdom stelae
or related objects in Simpson's ANOC groups include depictions of the Osiris Fetish, see ANOC, 1974.

Nor do any appear among the pre-New Kingdom inscribed material found by the expedition, see

Simpson, Inscribed Material from the Pennsylvania-Yale Excavations at Abydos, 5-8 and 33-53. This
seems to correspond to a more general change in decorum concerning the depiction of deities on private

monuments. Among the Middle Kingdom stelae published in the above collections it is very unusual
for deities to be depicted, with Wepwawet, Min and a mumiform figure of Osiris wearing the white
crown being the only three encountered among Simpson's ANOC groups.

62
East wall of the central hall, see Cenotaph of Seti 12, 1933, pi. 73.

63
R. Anthes, in: Fs Mus. Berlin, 1974, 25.

64
The relevant portion of the image in the tomb of Paser has been destroyed. 65
M. Lavier, in: BSAK 3,1989,289-295.

66
R. Anthes, in: Fs Mus. Berlin, 1974, 26.

67
See the stela of Houyou (Dyn. 19), Lyon museum of Fine Arts H 1379, in C. Karlshausen, L'icono

graphie de la barque processionelle divine en Egypte au Nouvel Empire, Diss. Louvain, 1997, cat. 306;
and the Chapel of Mayor Paser at Medinet Habu (tp. Rs. Ill), in S. Schott, Wall Scenes from the

Mortuary Chapel of the Mayor Paser at Medinet Habu, E. Hauser, transl., SAOC 30,1957, pi. 2.
68

The processional barque depicted on the north wall of Osiris' barque chapel in the Seti Temple is

generally believed to be a depiction of the nSmt-barque, see R. Anthes, in: Fs Mus. Berlin, 1974, 25.

Even Karlshausen, who believes that the nSmt-barque was a river barge, described this processional
barque as ?comme

une neshemet en reduction," see C. Karlshausen, L'iconographie de la barque

processionelle divine en Egypte au Nouvel Empire, Diss. Louvain, 1997, 125.

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2006 The Festivals of Osiris and Sokar in the Month of Khoiak 89

have been conducted by land. This physical fact must override all of the textual evidence
in favor of a water journey and the identification of the nSmt-barque as a river barge per

se.69

Fig. 7
- A barque that carried the Osiris Fetish,

as depicted on the north wall of Osiris' barque chapel in the Seti Temple

[A. Caulfield, The Temple of the Kings at Abydos: Seti I, ERA 8, 1902, reprint 1989, pi. Ill]

The equipment associated with the nSmt-barque shares many features with the Aker

platform and this boat-shaped palanquin was clearly used to transport the Osiris Fetish on

certain occasions. In its depiction, the top of the fetish appears above the shrine with its

face in profile and is surrounded by solar imagery similar to that from the south wall- the

Souls of Pe, here accompanied by a figure of the king and all performing the henu-gesture;
and the ram standards. There are other iconographical similarities between the two

conveyances: golden figures of the king, wearing the nemes-headdress, support the fetish

pole along with protective jackals and cobras. In this case, however, some figures of the

king are replaced by golden statuettes of Isis and Nephthys, raising their arms in a gesture
of mourning. Two of the standards depicted in front of the fetish ensemble on the south

wall, a jackal and a falcon, appear again at the prow of this barque, which has a similar

69
One might suggest that ritual practice changed over time. Tutankhamun seems to have changed the
route of the Opet Festival procession at Thebes from a land journey south to Luxor with return by barge
by river to a round-trip journey on the river, see W. Murnane, ?Opetfest", in: LA IV, 575. However,
there is no indication that there were water routes to the destinations under consideration herein at any
time. Thus, if there were variation over time that variation would have to have involved moving the site
of Peker to a place accessible by water, an unlikely proposition.

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2006 K. J. Eaton Tafel 5

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Osiris-Wennefer lies upon a bier. Composite statues, of Sokar appear in a depiction of a portable shrine.

Chapel of Ptah-Sokar, south wall, west end, lower register in the Seti Temple.

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Tafel 6 K.J.Eaton SAK 35

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Two of the guardian deities from the Chapel of Ptah-Sokar;
South wall, west end, upper register in the Seti Temple.

Detail of the collar and pectoral on the barque with the lion-footed bed.

East wall of Room 12 of the Osiris Suite in Seti Temple.

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