EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
We find here a crucial statement regarding the masonry used in the building; a fine-grained white limestone. Nebhepetre chose to highlight the great distance the stone travelled, and even the king’s own role in its selection. The emphasis on the quality of the white limestone suggests that it was taken from a source much further north, perhaps the Tura quarries opposite Memphis. This statement may be an oblique reference to the postreunification era of Nebhepetre’s reign when fine stone formerly in territory controlled by the Herakleoplitans was now available to Nebhepetre. The text goes on to say that the building is a mahat, a commemorative cult building erected by the king specifically for Osiris and the other gods of Abydos.
statues by means of boat would have tied these satellite temples to the main sanctuaries of the Abydene deities in the area of the Kom es-Sultan. Consequently, the canal may have extended southwards from the Osiris temple, passing in front of the area of the Nebhepetre chapel.The chapel itself likely stood on the desert edge above the height normally reached by the Nile inundation. Leading down from its entrance was probably a ramp or causeway terminating in a landing platform at the bank of the canal. In this regard it is striking that two of the later Ramesside cult buildings in this immediate area - the Ramses I chapel and Ramses II temple - follow the orientation established centuries before by the Nebhepetre chapel.Aside from the importance of orientation towards Umm el-Qa’ab, quite
One of the most intriguing elements of the chapel’s dedication text is Nebhepetre’s statement that, along with the building itself, the king established a canal for the conveyance of the gods of Abydos.The emphasis placed on this new canal is undoubtedly closely associated with the scenes on the west wall of the mahat chapel where we see personifications of the Neshmet barque and mooring post. It appears likely that this chapel was integrated into the periodic boat processions and itself physically connected to the canal mentioned in the dedication text. The statement suggests that Nebhepetre’s chapel, as well as later temples built in this zone of Abydos, were linked to the main Osiris temple by a series of interconnected water features. The ceremonial transport of the gods’
possibly all were constructed with respect to long-lived water features that lay within the floodplain. How did the Nebhepetre mahat, and the king’s new canal function in the context of the gods’ ceremonies at Abydos? One possibility is that the boat transport of the images of Osiris and Wepwawet described here was part of the annual Osiris procession.We know that this annual ceremony was initiated by a waterborne component in which the sacred Neshmet barque was placed on a water body, probably a sacred lake, prior to the journey of the god aboard two different barques to the area of peqer at Umm el-Qa’ab.What occurred following the ceremonies at Umm el-Qa’ab itself is less clear. The cluster of royal cult buildings on the desert edge facing towards the 6