THE VEILED IMAGE OF AMENAPET

Dirk van der Plas

Representations of gods from Ancient Egypt are well-known, even to scholars who are not specialized in Egyptian religion. The one of Amun of Luxor, that forms the subject of the present article, is less familiar. Unusual in some respects, it has been studied by several Egyptologists1 . The Egyptians have been quite explicit how they conceived of the cult-images of their gods, both statues and two-dimensional representa• tions in the ritual scenes on the temple walls. They believed that their gods were bodily present in their images. Statues, after being manu• factured by sculptors in an apartment of the temple called 'Goldhouse' became animated, i.e. received the means to use their senses and to perform their vital functions, by a ceremony which the Egyptians, since the Old Kingdom, called 'Opening the Mouth'2 . By this ritual the stat• ues became 'living images'. In this respect the title of the sculptors in the New Kingdom is meaningful. They were called 'those who make alive (animated) 13 • In the temple-service the statues were treated in accor• dance with this. Each morning the statues, which where locked up inside the sanctuary, had to be awakened, refreshed by washing and anointment, dressed, fed and censed by the priests. Yet the Egyptians did not identify the gods with their images. This appears clearly from texts of the New Kingdom and especially from the inscriptions of the temples of the Graeco-Roman period. Being in heaven himself, god comes down on earth through his Ba 4 to take possession of his statue, which is his body, in the same way as the Ba of the dead, represented by a bird with human head, flies up to heaven during the day to join the gods, and returns to the mummy and his images in the grave by night. In a text from the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1291 B. C. 5) it is said: 'May my Ba come down on my statues of the monuments which I have made16 • The text which is being adduced traditionally in this context is to be found on the famous stone (, No. 498). This cultic-theological text, which was carved on stone by order of king Shabaka in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (775-653 B.C.), because the 2 DIRK VAN DER PLAS original was found to be worrneaten, probably goes back to the New Kingdom 7. In this text the god of Memphis is said to have created all things by planning them in his heart and calling them into existence by his speech. So the gods, their temples and cults came into being too: 'Truly, he created the gods. He made all the cities and founded the nomes. He placed the gods in their shrines and established their offerings. He founded their shrines and made their bodies in agreement with the wishes of their heart. And so, the gods entered into their bodies of every kind of wood, every kind of stone, every kind of clay, of everything that grows on him (i.e. Ptah as earth-god), and in which they want to assume a shape18 But not only the cult-statues appear to be the animated 'bodies' of the gods, the same concept applies to their images in the reliefs. A text from the room of the god in the temple of Dendara (Graeco-Roman period) states: 'Osiris ( ... ) comes like a spirit to unite himself with his shape in his sanctuary. He comes down from heaven flying like a sparrow with gleaming feathers, and the Bas of the gods with him. He swoops down like a falcon to his room in Dendara. ( ... ) He enters his beautiful room peacefully, together with the gods that are around him. He sees his secret shape which is pictured at its place, his figure which is engraved on the walls. Then he enters his secret image, he comes down on his statue ( ... ) , and the Bas of the gods take their seats at his side'9 . However, gods do not always live in their statues and images. They need the cult, in which the union between their Bas and bodies is being realized daily and annually by the performance of ritual ceremo• nies. These could be enacted by priests only; for daily service of the gods in the temple could not be attended by common people. They met their gods during the festivals, when the cult-statues left the hidden