Alabaster sculpture of an Old Kingdom pharaoh, Pepi I Meryre, dressed to celebrate his Heb Sed, c. 2362 BCE, Brooklyn Museum
The Sed festival (ḥb-sd, conventional pronunciation /sɛd/; also known as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail) was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh. The name is taken from the name of an Egyptian wolf god, one of whose names was Wepwawet or Sed.[1] The less-formal feast name, the Feast of the Tail, is derived from the name of the animal's tail that typically was attached to the back of the pharaoh's garment in the early periods of Egyptian history. This tail might have been the vestige of a previous ceremonial robe made out of a complete animal skin.[2]
The ancient festival might, perhaps, have been instituted to replace a ritual of murdering a pharaoh who was unable to continue to rule effectively because of age or condition.[3][4] Eventually, Sed festivals were jubilees celebrated after a ruler had held the throne for thirty years and then every three to four years after that. The festival, primarily, served to reassert pharaonic authority and state ideology. Sed festivals implied elaborate temple rituals and included processions, offerings, and such acts of religious devotion as the ceremonial raising of a djed, the base or sacrum of a bovine spine, a phallic symbol representing the strength, "potency and duration of the pharaoh's rule".[5] The festival also involved symbolic reaffirmation of the pharaoh's rulership over Upper and Lower Egypt.[6] Pharaohs who followed the typical tradition, but did not reign so long as 30 years had to be content with promises of "millions of jubilees" in the afterlife.[7]
Despite the antiquity of the Sed festival and the hundreds of references to it throughout the history of ancient Egypt, the most detailed records of the ceremonies—apart from the reign of Amenhotep III—come mostly from "relief cycles of the Fifth Dynasty king Neuserra... in his sun temple at Abu Ghurab, of Akhenaten at East Karnak, and the relief cycles of the Twenty-second Dynasty king Osorkon II... at Bubastis."[8]
^Shaw, Ian. Exploring Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. 2003. ISBN 0-19-511678-X. p. 53
^Kamil, Jill (1996). The Ancient Egyptians: Life in the Old Kingdom. American Univ in Cairo Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-977-424-392-9.
^Cottrell, Leonard. The Lost Pharaohs. Evans, 1950. p. 71.
^Nock, Arthur Darby; Wainwright, G. A. (1940). "The Sky-Religion in Egypt, Its Antiquity and Effects". The Classical Weekly. 34 (5): 51. doi:10.2307/4341020. ISSN 1940-641X. JSTOR 4341020.
^Quoted from: Applegate, Melissa Littlefield. The Egyptian Book of Life: Symbolism of Ancient Egyptian Temple and Tomb Art. HCI, 2001. p. 173.
^Van de Mieroop, Marc (2011). A History of Ancient Egypt. WileyBlackwell. ISBN 978-1-119-62089-1. OCLC 1201693532.
^William Murnane, "The Sed Festival: A Problem in Historical Method", MDAIK 37, pp. 369–76.
^David O'Connor & Eric Cline, Amenhotep: Perspectives on his Reign, University of Michigan, 1998, p. 16.
The Sedfestival (ḥb-sd, conventional pronunciation /sɛd/; also known as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail) was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated...
comprises the great trench, enclosure wall, colonnaded entrance, "T" temple, Sedfestival complex, north and south pavilions, south tomb and court, western mounds...
celebrated three Sedfestivals in Regnal Years 30, 34, and 37, each at Malkata palace in Western Thebes. A temple of Amun and festival hall were built...
and Gerf Hussein. He celebrated an unprecedented thirteen or fourteen Sedfestivals—more than any other pharaoh. Estimates of his age at death vary, although...
lunar or agricultural cycles or the calendar in use at the time. The Sedfestival, for example, celebrated the thirtieth year of an Egyptian pharaoh's...
Aten"). Around regnal year two or three, Amenhotep IV organized a Sedfestival. Sedfestivals were ritual rejuvenations of an aging pharaoh, which usually...
Dynasty. Sed feast One of the most important feasts of Ancient Egypt linked with a king's time on the throne was the Sedfestival, the heb-sed. It included...
at Medinet-Habu as part of the cultic celebration of the pharaonic "Sed-Festival", but was transferred at some point to Herakleopolis and the temple of...
"the sed-festival scenes from Abu Gurab [most probably reflect] the 30th jubilee of the king's accession to the throne". The reliefs of Nyuserre's Sed festival...
in rituals associated with the royal coronation (khaj-nisut) and Sedfestivals (heb-sed) celebrating its well-celebrated anniversaries, and priests were...
preparations for a Sedfestival, or even begun celebrating it; but Amenhotep I's reign is usually given only 21 years and a Sedfestival traditionally cannot...
called "raising the djed", which was a part of the celebrations of the Sedfestival, the Egyptian jubilee celebration. The act of raising the djed has been...
military campaigns. During the New Kingdom, she was involved in the Sedfestival held by the pharaohs, who could celebrate thirty years of reign, recording...
year, Khaemweset's name started to appear in the announcements of the Sedfestivals. These were traditionally held in Memphis, but some of the announcements...
number of cattle censuses; and for later periods, the celebration of a Sedfestival. A number of Old Kingdom inscriptions allude to a periodic census of...
cultural importance of this goddess. During an annual festival held at the beginning of the year, a festival of intoxication, the Egyptians danced and played...
Egypt and the SedFestival of Amenhotep III. The statues found within the temple were used during rituals commonly found within the SedFestival; however,...
Twelve Caves Festivals Beautiful Festival of the Valley Cattle count Coronation of the pharaoh Min festival Opet FestivalSedfestival Related religions...
of Hathor beginning in the late Eighteenth Dynasty. An image of the sedfestival of Amenhotep III, meant to celebrate and renew his rule, shows the king...
In favor of such a long reign are scenes of a Sedfestival found in Unas' mortuary temple. This festival was normally celebrated only after 30 years of...
Twelve Caves Festivals Beautiful Festival of the Valley Cattle count Coronation of the pharaoh Min festival Opet FestivalSedfestival Related religions...
Twelve Caves Festivals Beautiful Festival of the Valley Cattle count Coronation of the pharaoh Min festival Opet FestivalSedfestival Related religions...
which mentions the "first occurrence of the Heb Sed" in that year for Pepi. Normally, the Sedfestival is first celebrated in a king's 30th year of reign...
Twelve Caves Festivals Beautiful Festival of the Valley Cattle count Coronation of the pharaoh Min festival Opet FestivalSedfestival Related religions...
Ramesses II even married two Hittite princesses, the first after his second SedFestival. This dynasty declined as infighting for the throne between the heirs...
pharaoh Sahure The Festival of Victory (Egyptian: Heb Nekhtet) was an annual Egyptian festival dedicated to the god Horus. The Festival of Victory was celebrated...
Earth's crust. In this form also, Ptah is the master of ceremonies for Heb Sed, a ceremony traditionally attesting to the first thirty years of a pharaoh's...
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