Actually it´s very suitable in the Kemetic way of looking at it, that the reconstruction of Abedjou is being finished now. Tomorrow is the Kemetic New Year - Wep Ronpet. What better than to start afresh?

The main page looks much better now, methinks. There is just some little correction of the font to be done.

At the Temple Garden, people have begun to move in. But here is so much more to be done to the hoods, time is never enough and for every idea which gets under way, a bunch of others crop up. Ah well, on to next district...

Finally I got time to create my district at Hood Abedjou: The Temple Garden. Thanks to help from Demetrios, Ase & Cornellia, all the pics and text is there and functioning. How I whish we could edit our own hoods....

There is even a new article, about Omm Sety who lived there for the most part of her life and better than anyone knew the temple, and played a great and determinging part in its reconstructions. She was a controversial and uncompromising lady who lived her belief no matter how odd it may seem, and for that I had the discussion thread created: Omm Sety - What To Think About All These Reincarnation Stories?.

I bought a book about her while at Abydos myself and that inspired me to that particular district. In it is told how she "remembered" whre there was once a garden attached to the buildings, and when she told the workers where to dig, it proved she was right. On the spot was found traces of a watering system and of various plants. Makes you get goose bumps, doesn´t it!

The Fourth Day - Night Vigil

During the Night Vigil there were prayers and recitations performed before the statue of Wesir. Priests and priestesses played parts in the reenactment and actual funeral rites were also performed.

The same acting-out of events happened simultaneously within the secluded temple halls and out in the streets of the village. Probably every villager who could, and visitors and pilgrims who had travelled there for the occasion, partook. We can only guess at the crowds and the intensity when this, their most holy time of the year was celebrated.

Sometimes these passion plays are interpreted as a form of early theatre. If so, then we must remember that the reason for their existence lay outside of the profane, it was within the divine sphere of life and a means to ensure that existence continued, both for the country as a whole and for the individual.

Another thing to bear in mind when speaking of it as a form of theatre, is that there did not exist the usual dividing up of actors and audience, however interactive. Everyone played a part, everyone was an integral part of the Passion Plays, and everyone was assured the benefits from it, both in life and in the Afterlife.

And this was thanks to Wesir and - Set.

The annual Passion Plays of Wesir (Gr: Osiris) were celebrated at Abydos in Upper Egypt during the IV Akhet, the period of the Inundation. In the modern calendar this corresponds to the end of November. It was celebrated at least from the 12th Dynasty onwards. We can get a glimpse of them through what is written on the Ikhernofret stela.

Would that I could see the Opener of the Ways in his first procession when he gleams as a god... and Heru the vigorous, who gladdens the people as he passes along the canals leading to the Great Hall

The Passion Plays of Wesir at Abedjou, Ancient Egypt, were held in the last month of the inundation, the fourth month of Akhet, and included eight acts. These celebrations relied on the myth of the murder of Wesir by his brother Set, and how his sister-wife Aset managed to restore him to life again. They were held at Abedjou, as that this was the traditional place where the body of Wesir drifted ashore after having been drowned in the Nile. The story of how his body was chopped up by Set and his helpers, is a later addition to the myth, which has not been found recorded before Plutharch.

The exact procedures are largely unknown. It is believed that there were great celebrations among people combined with secluded, sacred rituals performed by the priesthood inside the temple. Part of these rites were public however, and the processions which emerged from the temple were attended by masses of commoners. Perhaps the most important reason for the widespread popularity of the Cult of Wesir was the promise of eternal life to each and everyone, commoner and king alike.

Thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the Two Lands assembled yearly at Abedjou near the great temple to celebrate the mysteries. It was the desire and duty of every Egyptian to make a pilgrimage at least once in his life, to Abedjou. It is believed that people in the town divided up into two camps and acted out the murder of Wesir by Set, Aset´s sorrow and anger, her wanderings together with her sister Nebt-Het, to find her dead husband, the funeral and, finally, his resurrection as the Lord of the Dead. (The story of the dismemberment didn´t enter the picture until the Late Period, when Plutarch set it down.)

Inside the temple enclosure, secluded rituals were performed, with the priests and godservants playing the parts of the different gods, and occasionally the King himself took part. The celebrations went back thousands of years, tradition bringing the sense of stability and eternity.

They focused on the resurrection of Wesir and how he became the ruler of the kingdom of the deceased, (the 'Field of Reeds'), where the dead lived in eternity, the same life as on earth. They could do this thanks to the kingship of Wesir, and so the deed of Set was turned into benefit for all humans instead of remaining a murder of a King by a jealous brother.

The cult of Wesir and the acting out of these rituals by the priesthood became an important pendant to other rites such as the coronation and the Heb Sed Jubliee. In this way the cult of Wesir helped celebrate and maintain the power of kingship. By acknowledging Wesir as the king of the dead, and Heru, his son and heir as king of the living, they sought also to ensure the return of the yearly inundation, a plentiful harvest and, in fact, the perpetuation of Egypt on two planes - for the dead and for the living.

Some information of the proceedings of the Passion Plays of Wesir can be gleaned from a Middle Kingdom stela, which describes how a high official by name of Ikhernofret is given the task by the King to organize the Festival processions.

The First Day - The Procession of Wepwawet:

Wepwawet opens the way of the procession. The enemies of Wesir is struck down in a mock battle. It seems an assault was staged by the 'followers of Set', this was to be struck down, either by priests or by pilgrims acting the 'followers of Wesir', or perhaps by both. The jackal-god Wepwawet who is walking foremost in all royal processions and conquests, goes by the name of 'Opener of the Way'. In that context he opens the path for Wesir to gain access to the tomb.

The Second Day - The Great Procession of Wesir

The deceased Wesir, carried on a bark called 'Neshmet' ('night bark which Re rides in every night) is taken from his temple to his tomb. The procession moves through the surrounding cemetery grounds to the tomb (it seems they take a tour out in the desert before ending up at the Osireion). The Lamentations of Aset and Nebt-Het are performed by women impersonating the goddesses, all throughout these three days.

The Night of Vigil.

During this night´s reenactment, the enemies of Wesir are slain on the 'banks of Nedyet' (the tomb) and the night ends with the trial of Set before the Divine Tribunal.

The Third Day - Wesir is reborn

The god was reborn at dawn and crowned with the crown of Ma'at. The statue of Wesir on the Neshmet bark is brought back in triumph to his temple, followed by the jubilant masses. Purifications and reinstallment of the god in his House followed and before the rites were concluded, the 'Raising of the Djed-pillar' took place. This last part was not open to the public.

When the festival was concluded, the pilgrims usually offered something to the god, maybe dried alluvium, a small statuette, even a shrine or, if they were rich or kings, an entire temple.

Many pilgrims also erected stela on the grounds or at the outer precincts of the temple to be able to witness the Mysteries also after they themselves had 'Gone West':

I would be among the crowd following Wesir when he appears in his final form, praising the god and singing in adoration of the beauty of the Neshmet Barque, fetching the rudder for the boat and honouring the Great God

So I´m finally back. It´s been a long period with many troubles which I don´t want to dwell on here. I´m just very satisfied that I can be here and that it actually feels a bit as coming home. Things are well-known but some people have shifted. Still I find old friends and that feels so good!