There are clear indications that the consecrated nuptials of king and queen marked the Sed festival which was celebrated, at the beginning of every fourth year, at Denderah. Brugsch tells us that the place on the roof of the Hathor temple, where the celebration of the Sed festival took place, is specially designated as “the place of the first feast” and in many cases this is shown to have been the small open temple, whose roof is supported by four columns (fig. [70], 2 and 3). In one passage it is expressly stated that “she, Isis-Sothis, consorts with her father, the sun, at ‘the place of the first feast,’ ” represented by a picture of the said temple (fig. [70], 6).
It is interesting to compare the following passage with the successive one, as they exhibit different phases of religious cult. “In solemn procession statues of the god Ra and of Hathor-Isis (Sothis-Sirius) were carried up the stairs from the interior of the temple to its roof (the tep-hat or head of the house) where, under the open sky or in the small open temple on the roof designated as Hait at Denderah, the idols were unveiled at a given time....” “On the morn of the New Year Isis-Sothis ‘beheld her father on the beautiful day of the birth of the disk’ (mas-aten) or ‘the birth of the sun’ (mas-ra).” It is described how “the goddess was led upon the roof so that she might behold the rays of her [pg 431] father on his rising.... She is sometimes addressed directly, being told ‘that thou shouldst see thy father on the day of the New Year.’ ” In other texts allusion is made to the approach of Sirius to the sun on New Year's day: “her rays join (heter) with those of the radiant god on that beautiful day of the birth of the sun's disk in the morning of New Year's day:” or “thou consortest with thy father Ra in thy open temple, thy beautiful face being turned towards the south;” and elsewhere, “she comes on her beautiful festival of the New Year, to unite her greatness in heaven with that of her father; the gods are festive and the goddesses are full of joy when the right eye (Sirius) unites itself with the left eye (the sun). She rests upon her throne in the place where the disk of the sun can be seen and the radiant one (Isis-Sothis) combines herself with the radiant one (the sun).”
On one of the columns of the roof-temple at Denderah, the following text is inscribed: “This temple of Rekhit flourishes in possession of a lion (mahes) and of his daughter ... of the Horus of the east and of the goddess Khont-abut. They assume her heavenly form on New Year's day and each one consorts with his neighbor.” Preceding inscriptions are made more clear by the following detached passages translated by Brugsch, which merit careful study. “An inscription at Abydos makes the goddess Safkhet say to the king: ‘thou didst appear as king upon thy throne on the feast hib-seb; like the god Ra at the beginning of the year.’ ” “The high-priest of Ptah at Memphis was charged with the celebration of the Sed festival, which was a general festival throughout the land.” “The annual going of the Hathor of Denderah to Edfu took place in the month Epiphi.” “The goddess Hathor-Isis of Denderah is frequently called the second female sun next to the sun's disk, the many colored, feathered goddess, and is identified with Isis-Sothis.”
According to an extremely ancient belief it was the goddess Hathor Isis-Sothis who caused the inundation of the Nile which, according to the inscriptions, coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius. Owing to this circumstance she is called, “Isis the great, the mother of god, who causes the Nile to overflow when she shines at the commencement of the year,” or “the female sun who appears at the beginning of the year in the heaven as the divine Sothis star, the queen of the decan stars, whose rays illuminate the earth like those of the sun which appears in the morning. She is [pg 432] the mistress of the commencement of the year, who draws the Nile out of its source and thus confers life upon living human beings.” Elsewhere she is termed “the mistress of the commencement of the year, who makes the Nile rise at its period.” It is likewise said of her “on her beautiful feast of beholding her father, the heaven unites itself with the earth and the right eye unites itself with the left eye, at the beginning of the year.” She is described as Isis the great, the mother of god, the lady of Adut in Anet, the mistress of the beginning of the year, the monarch of the Sema? who appears on New Year's day to usher in the new year. (She is) the goddess Ament (the hidden one) in Thebes, Menat (the nurse) in Heliopolis, Renpit (i. e. the year) in Memphis, the divine star Sothis in Elephantine, the radiant one in Apollinopolis magna, etc.
In another passage Hathor-Isis is spoken of as “the goddess Mehen-net of the light-god and his Ar-hatef=(she who acts as pilot) in the boat sektet, which eternally passes through the heaven over the head of her father.” On the north wall of the Prondos of the Denderah temple Isis-Hathor is called “Hathor, the lady of Anet; Isis herself; the eye of Ra; the great one of Tentyra; the lady of heaven; the queen of gods and goddesses; the great Mat ... the female sun; the first in Tentyra; the true one amongst gods; the young; the daughter of a young ... [?] the beauty who appears in heaven; the truth which regulates the world at the prow of the bark of the sun; the queen and mistress of awe; the mistress of goddesses, Isis, the great, the mother of the god.”
The following texts from Brugsch are explicit enough: “The temple of Tentyra is fitted up for a bride, and is occupied by a bride.” “The temple of Tentyra is in bridal array and contains a bride on the beautiful festival of the birth of the sun.” “The temple of Tentyra is fitted up for a bridal and is in possession of a bride on her beautiful festival of the birth of the sun (mas-ra).”
The birth of a male or female Horus, of a young sun or moon, is alluded to in other texts as the “feast of the child in its cradle,” and coincided with New Year's day. According to Brugsch, the festival of the child in its ses=cradle, nest, or couch, undoubtedly coincided with New Year's day, as is proven by the following inscription: “The bringing of the band of stuff to the great Isis, the mother of the god, for the obtainment of a happy year. Receive, receive happy years on the day of the night of the child in [pg 433] its cradle!”... It is usual to interpret the birth of the young child, or sun of the New Year as a mere allegory of the astronomical fact and it may have been thus in later times. On the other hand, historical data prove that the actual birth of a “child,” the offspring of a royal sacramental marriage, did take place in the temple and that children, thus born, afterwards became the rulers of Egypt.
“At Luqsor, ... a great temple was built by Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379) to ‘his father Amen,’ with special reference to the divine conception of the king.... His birth is the great subject of the temple ... and his mother Mut-em-ua is the prominent figure in those scenes, pointing to her being important as queen-mother....” Of the later king Hor-em-heb (B.C. 1332-1328) it is inscribed: “Amen, king of the gods, dandled him ... when he came forth from the womb he was enveloped in reverence, the aspect of a god was upon him; the arm was bowed to him as a child and great and small did obeisance before him ” (Flinders Petrie, op. cit. pp. 177, 190 and 248).
The small Isis temple to the east of the great temple of Hathor at Denderah is specially designated as the lying-in chamber, or sacred house of birth. An inscription dating from the Roman period, on the outer eastern wall of this building reads: “Life! the female Horus, the youthful, the daughter of a hak (regent, Brugsch), Isis, the great, the mother of the Ra=god, is born in Tentyra in the ‘night of the child in its cradle,’ at the west side of the temple of Hat-seses (the great temple of Hathor).” It is, moreover, stated that “Horus, in female form, is the princess, the powerful, the heiress to the throne and the daughter of an heir to the throne.”
In another inscription, on the south wall of the small temple of Isis, the birth of Isis is described thus: “On this beautiful day, ‘of the night of the child in its cradle,’ on the great festival during which the world is re-adjusted, or balanced (sekhek en ta), the bringing forth of Isis takes place in the interior or centre of Anet (Tentyra) by the goddess Ap, the great, in the chamber of Ap, in the form of a dark red female person, the Khnum ankh, the lovely. Her mother, Nut, exclaimed at the sight of her: behold, (As is) I have become a mother. Thence the origin of the name Isis.... The south, towards the place of rising of the sun's disk, has been given over to her, and the north, towards.... [pg 434] She is, namely, the mistress of both sides of Egypt, with her son Horus and her brother Osiris.”