The ceremonial road of kings known as the “rams” road. It was built five thousand years ago. The length of the rams road is 2,700 meters from the Luxor temple to the Karnak temple. The rams’ road is 13.10 m wide. The ram was a symbol of the god “Amun”, and the king was depicted standing under his head. And between its front legs is a symbol of God’s protection for him. The name of the king and his titles are engraved on the base, and the current road of rams ends at the first pylon, which is the largest pylon in all of Egypt, and a large number of ancient Egyptians contributed to its construction.
Each god has feasts:
The archaeological expert, Dr. Ahmed Amer, who specializes in Egyptology, said in his speech to “The Seventh Day” that every god had many feasts, during which the Egyptians gathered to celebrate him, the most important of these feasts being the Feast of the Transition of the Holy Theban Trinity, which we see in detail on the walls of Luxor Temple. The custom is that the god “Amon” and his wife the goddess “Mut” and their son the god “Khonsu” move from their original place of worship in Karnak temple every year, in the second month of the flood season, in order to spend a period of time to rest in Luxor Temple, and this was accompanied by many manifestations Luxurious and great parties.
“Amer” continued, the celebration was beginning with the transfer of the statues of the three gods inside their gilded sarcophagi, from their chapels in the Karnak temples, placed in the sacred vessels, which the priests carry on the necks from inside the temple until the ship dock, located at the temple of “Amun” in Karnak, and from here the procession begins.
How were the celebrations?
He continued, “The ships are pulled with ropes from the shore of the Nile, followed by the king’s ship, and other ships loaded with all kinds of gifts, offerings, luxurious incense burners, exquisite utensils, boxes, decorative tools, perfumes and incense carried by many servants, and alongside these ships, a large crowd of people gather on the Nile shore. Following the procession, the trumpeter leads him.
Amer pointed out that the procession was followed by priests of different classes, carrying religious strobes moving it right and left, resonating like sweet music, then other groups of priests, chanting songs and invoking prayers, and a great crowd of soldiers with their weapons, musicians of different types, and dancers signing They danced in a special way to the melodies of music, and they wore thin clothes that showed the charms of their bodies, and the bearers of fans, and on the two shores people fell in prostration and reverence, and in respect of the gods whenever the procession passed them in its sacred ships wobbly on the waters of the Nile. People gathered in droves to participate in this great feast. If the ships docked at the quay of the Luxor Temple, the priests carried the sacred burden on their necks again, and entered the temple between chanting and exclaiming, where the statues of the three gods are deposited in their holy places. Then the celebrations continue in Luxor Temple, next to the road of rams, And the length of time the gods stayed there, so if they wanted to return to their place of worship at Karnak, the celebration of their sacred procession was repeated.
Why put rams in the way of sacred ceremonies:
The archaeological expert indicated that the construction of this road had begun at the hands of King “Amenhotep III” of the eighteenth dynasty, who started the construction of the Luxor Temple, but the largest share of the implementation is due to King Nectanebo I, founder of the Pharaonic Thirty Dynasty, and the ancient Egyptian called it “Watt” Prose “WAt-nTr”, meaning the way of God, and celebrations in the eighteenth dynasty continued for eleven days, and the period increased to twenty-seven days in the twentieth dynasty.
Amer added that the statue of the “ram”, which symbolizes the god “Amon”, means in the Egyptian civilization “the hidden that no one sees”, so they put his huge statues on the way in front of the processions to give awe and importance, unlike the god “Ra” who always appeared in front of crowds. The sects of the people, and the celebration began with the Karnak Temple, which was known in the ancient Egyptian civilization as “Apet-Sut”, which means “the one who prepares the places”, meaning “the one who reviews the royal places, then changes the meaning of the name in the Ramesside era to “for the chosen places”, The name “Apet-Sut” appeared for the first time in the Middle Kingdom on the walls of the shrine of “Senusret I”, which was found in Pylon III.
The road of rams
Rams’ Road Corridor
