Escort of Horus

King's barge in hieroglyphics
	Cheops barque as a hawk barque

Escort of Horus in hieroglyphics
	Escort of Horus on the Narmer palette

The escort of Horus (also servant of Horus, feast of the journey through the country ) initially symbolized the king as a living Horus , in whose entourage other ancient Egyptian deities were, and is documented in ancient Egyptian mythology as early as the Thinite period. At this time, Horus was considered the all-encompassing sky god and shows connections to the goddess Mafdet , who, as the wearer of the sky panther skin , had the characteristics of the later introduced Osiris .

With the worship of the sun god Re , which was introduced in the 3rd dynasty , a change in meaning took place in the subsequent period, since the king now represented the personified sun deity as the firstborn son of Re. With the later establishment of courts of justice in Memphis , the pageants of the Horus escort and the associated cattle counting and jurisdiction ended .

Royal cult

In the representations of the Royal Papyrus Turin , the early kings are also listed who are expressly referred to as "servants of Horus" or "successors of Horus" with regard to the Horus names . The calendar entries on the Palermostein name the cattle count as part of the tax as a solemn procession of the "Escort of Horus".

Standards of four

On the Narmer palette , the king wears the red crown of Lower Egypt during a procession , followed by a sandal bearer whose title is provided with the ideogram of the goddess Seschat . A panther skin bearer named Tjet can be seen walking ahead of the king ; in front of it four smaller people as standard bearers of the king at the head of the procession. Those four standards show the classic four standard, which usually symbolize the divine character traits of the king.

The falcon shows the king as divine ruler, the ibis as the appearance of the nocturnal moon deity Thoth. The falcon and ibis appeared as representatives of the two times of day, day and night : the day as "activity", "conquest", "expansion" and "heaven god", the night as "procreation", "magic", " light land of the hereafter " and " executor of the cycle ".

The jackal or wolf stood as a symbol for the deity Upuaut, who identified the king as the firstborn and in a double function as an accompanying "path opener": on the one hand as "path opener" of the afterlife for the deceased and on the other hand as "path opener" for the newborn in the birth canal. The Chons symbol finally united the cycle of death and rebirth . In Egyptology , the standard of four is usually referred to as the "escort of Horus", although on other occasions the "open standard" also functioned as the "escort of Horus".

Open standard

The open standard was always to be seen in iconographic representations when the king as "living Horus" performed the activities of "conqueror of enemies", "lord of the world" and "conqueror". The designation "open standard" is derived from the interchangeability of the deities shown and was used in changing ceremonies.

Seth could therefore be taken into account in armed conflicts before his interim ostracism , as could Min in connection with the king's renewal festivals , for example the Min festival and the Sed festival . Female deities such as Hathor , Isis , Mafdet and Sachmet also belonged to the open standard and thus to the "Escort of Horus" . In later Egyptian mythology, Taweret is considered the "wife of Seth", who was only accepted into the "Escort of Horus" after she turned away from Seth.

Festival cult

The festival "drive through the country"

Originally, the king roamed the country every two years to administer justice and distribute gifts for outstanding achievements of the people. These activities went hand in hand with the festival “Drive through the country”. In the early days, village chiefs and minor princes were responsible for supplying the king. The standards marched through the country accompanied by army detachments with the king. In this context, the army was also seen as escorting Horus. The associated royal motif of "punishing the wicked and rewarding the followers" persisted in various modifications until the late period .

In connection with the ceremonies, a ship was always depicted in tomb paintings. This form of representation can be found in archaeological finds during the Negade II epoch for all of Egypt. Initially, the ship was mainly used as a "container for presents and gifts". For this purpose, the king's ship "Horus, the king's falcon" represented the king himself as a symbol of God. The gift vessels probably contained ointments and anointing oils that the faithful of the country received as divine gifts. Even in later times, ointments and oils continued to be of great importance as sacred gifts. In return, sacrificial gifts from the population could be stowed in the emptying ship.

The king drove to several stops on the bank of the Nile on the ship on which the escort of Horus stood in the form of statues of gods in small shrines . While the people celebrated on the bank of the Nile, the king exercised his office as divine judge. As a sign of jurisdiction, an alignment post was affixed in the fore aisle with the "Shemsi" execution device, which the king replaced with the "post of the world ruler Re" after the introduction of the cult of Re. For example, the forty-meter-long royal ship of Cheops had a gold casing and served as the “ great judicial house ”.

From the escort of Horus to tax collection

At the beginning only the counts of gold and agricultural yields were the focus, later the cattle count was added. After the arrival of the flood of the Nile, these activities were tied to the tasks of royal jurisdiction. As part of these activities, the king's officials delivered the taxes to the population. The amount of the tax was based on the respective livestock and the arable land to be cultivated.

The escort of Horus has been documented on the Palermostein since the 1st dynasty . In the second half of the 1st Dynasty, the mentions of the companion of Horus ended. It is possible that the Escort of Horus temporarily took a back seat due to special events or was no longer explicitly mentioned. The exact reasons could not be reconstructed until today. With the beginning of the 2nd dynasty , however, the documented processions of the escort of Horus reappeared, which were now additionally provided with the appendix “umpteenth time of the count (tenut)”. From this a fee developed that was to be paid regardless of the appearance of the king.

The escort of Horus in the cult of the dead

Escort of Horus as a tomb painting

After the death of the king, his corpse is brought to his grave in a funeral procession, accompanied by the Horus escort. The standard of the Upuaut or Junmutef was at the head of the convoy. Upuaut is, like Anubis later, a god of the dead who, as the “opener of the ways”, accompanied the Ba souls on their way to the “ holy land ”. Hence Upuaut and Anubis were nicknamed "Lord of the Holy Land".

In the later cult of Re , the priests recited during the opening of the mouth ceremony and preparation for the “last exodus of the justified” as the king of the living: “You go out and see Re above the heavenly post, the bearers of heaven, above the head of Iunmutef, above the Shoulder of the Upuaut ”. In a grave text, for example, the separation of the Ka from the Ba is described in this context : “May you detach yourself from the Ka in the place where he (Re) dwells in the midst of the first Djadjat; may you make friends with the escort of Horus. ”Iunmutef, Anubis or Upuaut acted alternately in these ceremonies as the“ first escort of Horus ”.

At the same time it becomes clear with the "direction of movement of the escort of Horus" that the entrance gates of the world beyond were not under the earth, but in the heavenly regions in the area of the Mesqet .

literature

Jan Assmann : Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. Special edition. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49707-1 , p. 346.
Josep Cervelló Autuori: Africa antigua. El antiguo Egipto, una civilización africana (= Aula Aegyptiaca. Studia 1). Actas de la IX Semana de Estudios Africanos del Center d'Estudis Africans de Barcelona (18-22 de marzo de 1996). Aula Aegyptiaca, Barcelona 2001, ISBN 84-607-2429-8 , pp. 77-96.
Hans Bonnet: Lexicon of the Egyptian religious history. Nikol, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , p. 141.
Wolfgang Helck : Economic history of ancient Egypt in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC (= Handbook of Oriental Studies . Department 1: The Near and Middle East. Volume 1: Egyptology. Section 5). Brill, Leiden et al. 1975, ISBN 90-04-04269-5 .
Christoph Hönig: The journey through life on the world's sea. The topos. Texts and interpretations. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1901-6 , p. 20.
Siegfried Schott : Altägyptische Festdaten (= Academy of Sciences and Literature. Treatises of the Humanities and Social Sciences Class. (AM-GS). 1950, Volume 10, ISSN 0002-2977 ). Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences and Literature and others, Mainz and others 1950.

Web links

Hieroglyph R60: Imiut fetish as a chons symbol

Individual evidence

↑ The original hieroglyph of the standard of the Chons (Imiut fetish) cannot currently be represented in the Wikipedia font.
↑ Björn Landström : Ships of the Pharaohs. 4000 years of Egyptian shipbuilding. Allen & Unwin, London 1970, p. 120.

[1] The original hieroglyph of the standard of the Chons (Imiut fetish) cannot currently be represented in the Wikipedia font.

[2] Björn Landström : Ships of the Pharaohs. 4000 years of Egyptian shipbuilding. Allen & Unwin, London 1970, p. 120.