That first feast continued till morning. The pharaoh, it is true, departed immediately, but others remained, first in their chairs and then on the floor. Finally Antefa had to send them home as if they had been lifeless objects.
The marriage ceremony took place some days later.
To Antefa's palace went the high priests Herhor and Mefres, the nomarchs of the neighboring provinces, and the chief officials of Thebes. Later appeared Tutmosis on a two-wheeled chariot, attended by officers of the guard, and finally his holiness, the pharaoh.
Ramses was attended by the chief scribe, the commander of the archers, the commander of the cavalry, the chief judge, the chief treasurer, Sem the high priest, and the adjutant generals.
When that splendid assembly was in the hall of the ancestors of the most worthy Antefa, Hebron appeared in white robes with a numerous retinue of damsels and maids in attendance. Her father, after he had burned incense before Amon and the statue of his own father, and Ramses XIII, who was sitting on a raised platform, declared that he freed his daughter Hebron from guardianship and provided her with a dowry. Then he gave her, in a gold tube, a document securing her dowry, and written before the court on papyrus.
After a short lunch the bride took her seat in a costly litter borne by eight officials of the province. Before her went music and singers; around the litter were dignitaries, and behind them an immense crowd of people. All this procession moved toward the temple of Amon, through the most beautiful streets of the city, amid a throng of people almost as numerous as that which had attended the funeral of the pharaoh.
At the temple the people remained outside the walls while the bride and groom, the pharaoh and dignitaries, entered the hall of columns. There Hebron burned incense before the veiled statue of Amon, priestesses performed a sacred dance, and Tutmosis read the following act from a papyrus:
"I, Tutmosis, commander of the guard of his holiness Ramses XIII, take thee, Hebron, daughter of Antefa the nomarch of Thebes, as wife. I give thee now the sum of ten talents because Thou hast consented to marry me. For thy robes I designate to thee three talents yearly, and for household expenses one talent a month. Of the children which we may have the eldest son will be heir to the property which I possess now and which I may acquire hereafter. If I should not live with thee, but divorce myself and take another wife, I shall be obliged to pay thee forty talents, which sum I secure with my property. Our son, on receiving his estate, is to pay thee fifteen talents yearly. Children of another wife are to have no right to the property of our first-born son." [Authentic]
The chief judge appeared now and read an act in which the bride promised to give good food and raiment to her husband, to care for his house, family, servants, slaves, and cattle, and to entrust to that husband the management of the property which she had received or would receive from her father.
After the acts were read Herhor gave Tutmosis a goblet of wine. The bridegroom drank half, the bride moistened her lips with it, and then both burned incense before the purple curtain.