Identification of Temple Reliefs Depicting the Opet Festival

Egyptologists have long considered the Opet Festival to be one of the largest annual celebrations in Egypt. The festival appeared in history only after the foundation of Thebes and subsequently held religious supremacy in Egyptian society.Although Egyptian festivals have been generally referred to by Egyptologists on a frequent basis, there have been few comprehensive studies focusing on specific festivals. Previous research concerning the Opet Festival has usually been concerned with the larger of the temple complexes involved, the Karnak Temple. There has been only limited evaluation of the ritual's terminal location, the Luxor Temple. As a result, projects documenting the reliefs at the Luxor Temple have not been extensive, and understanding of the Opet Festival's orientation within a religious framework has not been pursued.In the 1960's William Murnane made a list of iconographic references mainly from temple reliefs depicting festival scenes. Murnane's list, however, presents us with some ambiguous examples of festival scenes, and unfortunately he died in 2000 leaving us with no identification criteria. It is therefore important to first clarify the methodology for identifying the iconographic material before further research is undertaken on the Opet Festival.This paper focuses on a relief in the Karnak Temple which has not been studied in connection with the Opet Festival, one of the Pinedjem reliefs. It is intended to supply a new material resource for researchers. This relief can be justified as referring to the Opet Festival for the following reasons:1) The Opet Festival was one during which an oracle was declared.2) The date and duration inscribed on the relief correspond to that of the Opet Festival.3) Temple reliefs depicting the Opet Festival seem to have a common cardinal orientation.