Commemorating Amenhotep III’s sed-festivals
Amenhotep III in sed-festival attire, reused block in the Khonsu temple at Karnak.
(Photo A. Chéné, CFEETK)
Mødedato: Torsdag d. 10. april 2025, kl. 18 – Lokale 22.0.11
Commemorating Amenhotep III’s sed-festivals in Thebes and Soleb, v. Susanne Bickel, professor of Egyptology, University of Basel, Switzerland
In his thirtieth year of reign, and again in his year 33 and 37, pharaoh Amenhotep III from the 18th dynasty had a lavish jubilee festival organized. The celebrations lasted over several weeks and implied numerous high officials and priests. It was also a great economic endeavour with temples and palaces being built for the purpose and large quantities of food and wine prepared for the festivities.
The actual sequence of rituals and events can only be very partially reconstructed through the available documentation. The festivals were, however, also commemorated for eternity in temple reliefs that were taken over and adapted from Old Kingdom models. Two examples of this extended sed-festival relief cycle are preserved, albeit incompletely, one in Thebes and one in the Nubian temple of Soleb.
The Theban relief cycle is preserved partly within the remains of Amenhotep III’s funerary cult temple on the West Bank – presumably its original location – and partly in the form of reused blocs in the 21st Dynasty Khonsu temple at Karnak. Parts of the Nubian example at Soleb are still standing and therefore allow a better insight into the sequence of representations and the visual impression this remarkable composition must have made on people entering the temple.
The lecture will present some of this material, analyse the process of reactivating a very old model of scenes, and try to grasp some of the messages and impressions the sed-festival relief cycle would have conveyed upon contemporaneous viewers.
About Princesses and Robbers. New research in the Kings’ Valley.
University of Basel
Kings’ Valley Project,
M. Kacicnik
Mødedato: Torsdag d. 31/3 2016, kl. 19.00
Lokale: 22.0.11, KUA1
ved Prof. Dr. Susanne Bickel, Universität Basel
The lecture will present recent results from the investigations of the University of Basel Kings’ Valley Project. Research focusses on so far unknown tombs from the 18th dynasty that were prepared for members of the royal family and entourage. Although badly looted by antique and modern robbery, the fragmentary funerary equipment opens new insight into burial practices and social structures at pharaoh’s court.