The Study Of The Valley Festival In The New Kingdom Of Ancient Egypt

The Valley Festival,mainly expressed as Hb int in Egyptian,was one of the important festivals in the Thebes in ancient Egypt.It started in the Middle Kingdom,lasted until the Greco-Roman period,and reached its peak during the New Kingdom.The Valley Festival held annually on the second month of the Harvest Season,lasted two days and was a celebration of gods,kings,nobles,commoners and the dead.The ceremony consisted of two parts: one was that the king led the statue of Amun and the procession from Karnak Temple across the Nile River,visited the temples of Deir el-Bahari and the private tombs of Thebes,and then returned.Second,relatives of those buried visited the temples,offered sacrifices and feasted.The inscriptions about the Valley Festival are recorded on temple walls,ostraca of Deir el-Medina,and aristocratic tombs and statues.The images are mostly relief and frescoes,which are kept in the Mortuary Temples of kings and the transverse halls of the Theban Tombs.The earliest information of the Valley Festival appears vaguely in the Mortuary Temple of Mentuhotep II.The first clear confirmation of Valley Festival is the restored wall relief of the temple of Hatshepsut,which depicts a procession.Private tomb paintings in the Theban Necropolis of the New Kingdom depict the scenes of the dead taking part in the Valley Festival.Inscriptions on the walls of the temple of Medinet Habu record the time and the king’s offerings.Based on the above materials,this paper will analyze and demonstrate the related vocabulary,celebration time,activity place and ritual process of the Valley Festival in the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt,so as to explore the social customs,ideas and religious life of ancient Egypt.The analysis shows that the Valley Festival is a folk cultural activity,which strengthened the social connection between the ancient Egyptians and enhanced the national sentiment.At the same time,Valley Festival was the integration and sublimation of politics,economy and religion,leaving a precious cultural wealth for later generations,which is an important basis for us to understand the ancient Egyptian festivals,calendars,religious ceremonies and social life.