Teaser for major forthcoming event at Luxor

[Wepwawet]

I've no idea what the event is or when it will happen. It's clearly now part of a pattern of events stylistically linked. The mummy parade, Khufu's boat, this, whatever it is, and a Tutankhamun parade yet to come, and the opening of the GEM. And who knows what they will do for the centenary next year, unveil an important tomb kept secret since discovery, hmm.

Edit: While not having an actual date for this event, it has clearly, IMO, been arranged specifically for this time of year. We are now in II Akhet of the AE calender, and III Akhet will begin on the 10th November next week. The Opet festival was held between II and III Akhet.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Wepwawet

[+susieice]

This looks like it's going to be incredible! I'm still not over the mummy parade and the show that the Egyptian people put on. That was absolutely beautiful! I saw Khufu's boat. I'm really looking forward to Tut's parade too. What is happening in Egypt is just spectacular.

Edited November 5, 2021 by susieice

[Wepwawet]

It is in fact a "revival" of the Opet festival, and is being held to celebrate the completion and restoration of the Great Processional Way, the avenue of sphinxes, from the main temple complex at Karnak to the Luxor temple, it was all just Waset to an AE. It's explained in this article from Al-Monitor dated July this year, so clearly Al-Monitor needs to be, monitored, more often as I'd not seen a single thing about this anywhere else. Modern Opet Festival

A quote from the article:

Quote

 

The upcoming event, El-Saghir added, will revive the celebration of Opet Day. It was one of the famous and important feasts in ancient Egypt. It is dedicated to Amun and is celebrated in the Coptic month of Paopi, when the harvest season ends, between Oct. 11 and Nov. 10.

“Opet Festival was held to honor the Thebes’ local trinity: Amun-Re along with his consort goddess Mut and their son Khonsu. During that festival, there was a procession from Karnak Temple. Three statues representing these gods were placed in gilded barques and carried by priests along the Grand Processional Way to Luxor Temple and back,” he said.

Karnak Temple, on the eastern bank of Luxor, was the venue of the cult of Amun, God of Thebes. Luxor temple, three kilometers south of Karnak, is where he married Mut.

“In the upcoming celebration, people representing priests will carry the statue of Amun from Karnak Temple, Mut’s from her temple and Khunsu's as well on sacred boats, exactly like ancient Egyptians did,” he said, adding that lighting, Pharaonic attire, performances and music will add excitement to the modern festival.

He pointed out that the Opet Festival’s rituals are detailed in Luxor Temple, adding, “The inscriptions also reveal many features of that feast such as music, dance, military marches, presenting offerings and horse shows.”

 

So three shrines on sacred barques carrying statues of Amun, Mut and Khonsu will be carried from their respective temples to the head of the processional way, and then carried down to the Luxor temple. I'm not sure here if at least one of the gods will be carried on a boat on the Nile, or if the boat reference is just about the sacred barques that were carried by priests. It was their practice to carry the gods down the Processional Way to Luxor, then return to Karnak by river, but this will be for show, not religious observance so I guess there will be a lot of licence taken. So, @susieice, it does look like it's going to be incredible.

A link to the presidential youtube channel, which carried the mummy parade live. https://www.youtube.com/c/egyptianpresidency

Edited November 5, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

This is one of the replica sacred barques with shrine that will appear at the festival. I don't know what level of detail they are after, but this, taken from the barque of Horus at Edfu, is very good. I would suspect that all three barques will actually be the same as this, so no replica of the Barque of Userhat, which would have been a spectacular sight, but, we'll see on the day. The barque in the photo is in front of the temple of Khonsu. The festival will be broadcast world wide, but as for a date, all they say is "soon", but I think the back end of next week, maybe Saturday, at a guess.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Wepwawet

[+susieice]

That's beautiful!

[Wistman]

Has the event taken place?  I can't seem to find info that it has.

[Wepwawet]

5 minutes ago, Wistman said:

Has the event taken place?  I can't seem to find info that it has.

No, and believe me I'm keeping my ear to the ground on this one as I certainly don't want to miss it. The latest is that the minister was in Luxor on the 11th to inspect progress, and asked the organizers to make some changes.

This is a bit like the mummy parade, we all knew it was going to happen, but they gave almost no advance warning of a date or where it could be watched, and a lot of scrambling around.

This is the second of four major events, the Khufu boat not included. So there is the opening of the GEM and the Tutankhamun event to come. I'll predict that the GEM opening will come first, and the Tutankhamun event on or around the centenary in a years time.

[Wepwawet]

The three barques of Amun, Mut and Khonsu. No idea what is at the back, which can be seen more clearly in the photo a few posts up. There's nothing on the temple walls that looks like it, and it looks a bit Hollywood, maybe some sort of palanquin type thingy for an actor portraying a king, maybe for Hawass, with fan bearers, followed by pyramidiots being led in chains and scourged. Ahram yesterday, from where this photo is from, are saying, as are other Egyptian media, that "The start date is shrouded in secrecy".

 

And some entertainment while we wait.

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Finally a date. Thursday the 25th of November. No time has been given, but presumably any time after 1700 Egypt time, 1500 GMT as it's a night event. Opet date

And some more entertainment while we wait.

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Wepwawet

[+susieice]

I hope I can find a good link in English. @Wepwawet You found the right link for me for the other parade. Should I try the same site as that? It will be Thanksgiving Day here, but I don't want to miss this.

[Wepwawet]

7 hours ago, susieice said:

I hope I can find a good link in English. @Wepwawet You found the right link for me for the other parade. Should I try the same site as that? It will be Thanksgiving Day here, but I don't want to miss this.

It will be on the president's youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/egyptianpresidency not least because he will be attending. The mummy parade is still on the channel Mummy parade  There's one potential downer though and that's the weather, which has not been good along the length of the Nile. There were thunderstorms at Aswan the other week that caused a plague of scorpions, and in the Delta it has rained so hard in the last few days that corpses have been forced to the surface in cemeteries. The forecast for Luxor seems to be okay though with only medium possibility of the Nile running red and three days of darkness. Incidences of boils seems to be normal, for the moment and the frog population remains stable. The first born are becoming nervous and are asking for the statues of Sekhmet to be re-erected at Karnak, just in case.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Start time is 19:30

I assume this is Egyptian time, so 17:30 GMT

[+susieice]

16 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Start time is 19:30

I assume this is Egyptian time, so 17:30 GMT

So if this graph and my thinking is correct, it will be 12:30 pm here on the US east coast. I took the 19:30 as military time.

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/egypt-cairo-to-est

Comes out the same converting GMT to EST.

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/gmt-to-est-converter

Edited November 25, 2021 by susieice

[Wepwawet]

4 hours ago, susieice said:

So if this graph and my thinking is correct, it will be 12:30 pm here on the US east coast. I took the 19:30 as military time.

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/egypt-cairo-to-est

Comes out the same converting GMT to EST.

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/gmt-to-est-converter

Yes, that's right. The mummy parade started almost an hour late, so maybe this will not start dead on time

Also streaming here https://www.youtube.com/c/ExperienceEgypt/videos but lower quality broadcast than the presidency channel.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

The Barque of Amun

[Wepwawet]

Here now live in English

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Wepwawet

[+susieice]

That was spectacular!

[Wepwawet]

Far better than the mummy parade, and there's still two more of these events to come.

The actual Opet reconstruction begins at 1:29:00 for anybody who did not watch live and wants to skip the travelogue parts. This is the Experience Egypt version which did not suffer the sound and video problems that the presidential channel had.

It was fantastic, and what can you say except, Amun hotep

 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Actually, while the barque of Amun led the procession, Khonsu might have been more hotep as it started from his temple, and with the Moon projected onto the pylon during the opening song.

A sight not seen for about 1,600 years or so, and probably never to be seen again, unless they hold a cut down version on a regular basis for tourists, hm.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

The restored processional avenue looks great, what a wonderful achievement.  I can't imagine how the Egyptians felt, witnessing this ancient ritual of theirs in its original setting.  

[Wepwawet]

12 hours ago, Wistman said:

The restored processional avenue looks great, what a wonderful achievement.  I can't imagine how the Egyptians felt, witnessing this ancient ritual of theirs in its original setting.  

I was looking at the live comment feed, and just like the mummy parade they are, and not to exagerate, a bit ecstatic about it. They need tourists of course, and that is what this is all about, but mostly the feeling I get is their pride in putting on a show like this and getting a feel good factor. They'll get the tourists, but this damned covid thing is the issue, and they cannot do a thing about that.

I do wonder if while having some dodgy costumes, our modern interpretation would be visually better than the original. They could of course never have put on a spectacular night show with lights and the type of music, and their festival would have taken hours as they had to stop at, a think, six way stations to make offerings and change over the priests carrying the barques, laden down with real gold. On the other hand, they would have been huge crowds excited at, for them, seeing their gods, something we just cannot replicate, except perhaps Hindus, not too sure about what they believe is happening at their festivals.

[Wistman]

16 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

I was looking at the live comment feed, and just like the mummy parade they are, and not to exagerate, a bit ecstatic about it. They need tourists of course, and that is what this is all about, but mostly the feeling I get is their pride in putting on a show like this and getting a feel good factor. They'll get the tourists, but this damned covid thing is the issue, and they cannot do a thing about that.

I do wonder if while having some dodgy costumes, our modern interpretation would be visually better than the original. They could of course never have put on a spectacular night show with lights and the type of music, and their festival would have taken hours as they had to stop at, a think, six way stations to make offerings and change over the priests carrying the barques, laden down with real gold. On the other hand, they would have been huge crowds excited at, for them, seeing their gods, something we just cannot replicate, except perhaps Hindus, not too sure about what they believe is happening at their festivals.

To be honest, I found the spectacular/political aspect to the program a bit laughable, but I know it would not have happened at all if such weren't provided.

The sphinx avenue however I found to be marvelous.  I remember well what that area looked like previously and am duly impressed.  On the other hand the ritual, however improbable, symbolized something ancient that was being imperfectly interpreted out of respect...and love.  A wonderful thing altogether, I couldn't but be moved.

[Wepwawet]

Yeah the bulk of the show was just advertising blurb and "Hail pharoah Sissi". The procession could be picked and ripped apart for historical inacurracies, the Hollywood use of the nemes always rankles, but, as a spectacle designed for modern prospective tourists I think it was excellent. Like I said earlier, if they had replicated, as best they could, the real procession, it would have taken all day and had many long parts that would be inexplicable to most, and probably boring to most after a while. My main complaint is that they kept switching camera views and gave far too much prominence to the singers, but this is an issue far beyond this were everything is done for low attention span viewers who need constant fresh stimulation, but that's a whole different topic to rant about

[Wepwawet]

Short edited highlights video of the Opet Festival "reconstruction".

 

[Wepwawet]

Countdown begins for the next batch of events, but it's a long countdown to the main event in November.