Religious power of Pharaoh (Maat) - The priest king, ritual.

PHARAOH
 
Religious power of Pharaoh (Maat) - The priest king, ritual. Pharaoh according to the texts: the guarantor of universal order  (Maat) Many texts expose the Egyptian conceptions about the nature of the powers of the Pharaoh. The following text engraved on the temple of Luxor, date of the eighteenth dynasty but its origin is much older. "Re placed the king in the land of the living, forever and ever, to judge men and meet the gods to bring about ma'at and annihilate iséfet, giving offerings to the gods and funerary offerings to the deceased. The name of the king is in heaven like Ra and he saw elation as Re-Horakhty; to see, pat [notable] exult, and Rekhyt (subjects) address him cheers, under color of newborn, the rising of Ra as Khepri. " The text recalls that the first pharaoh still holds power of the creator god Ra. The Book of the cow (Egyptian version of original sin) shows how the delegation of the creator god to Pharaoh took place. Then exposed the mandates Ra pharaoh to rule well: - "Judge men" to justice - "Satisfy the gods": religious power The text further specifies how to satisfy the gods, "making it happen and destroy Iséfet Maat". Creating the world was to bring out the initial chaos an organized universe. But later, Re abandoning the direction of the world, men, imperfect, were forced to work to feed themselves and earn their own salvation. The creation of the world is not final but renewable each morning (the text compares the rising sun to a "newborn"), the gods must constantly maintain universal order (Maat) which is constantly threatened by forces chaos (Iséfet). But to do so, the gods must be strong, "nourished by the offerings." Pharaoh therefore vital mission for the sustainability of the world, to worship the gods of Maat that Iséfet triumph. If Pharaoh does not meet Maat, the world could return to primitive chaos. Maat expresses universal harmony (back each day of the Sun regularly came from the Nile flood ...) Iséfet embodies all forms of disturbances, natural or human (earthquakes, destructive civil wars floods, epidemics .. .).  Pharaoh Seti I making an offering of Maat to the Osirian triad. Temple of Abydos.  
Daughter of Ra, Maat is represented as a deity wearing a headband that holds an ostrich feather symbolizing lightness justice and truth. In the sanctuary of the temple, Maat is offered to the statue of the god, with his morning meal. In return, the god quickened by the offering helps maintain the balance of creation. Maat also represents the social order: all Egyptians and Pharaoh first, must comply with its rules. The goddess preaches kindness, charity, obedience and respect. It condemns dishonesty, lying, greed, laziness. As the goddess of justice and truth, it guides the judges at the final judgment in the weighing of the heart. The goddess Maat - Archaeological Museum of Florence.
Accounting for its actions to Maat, the pharaoh, in theory, can turn into a despot, however, the king has absolute power, like the sun dominates the land, Pharaoh dominates both components of society, "Pat "(civil servants) and" rekhyt "(the simple people running). Officials (privileged) express their active membership, they "rejoice," the people have a reduced role, he submits to the established order, it carries "Cheers." The priest king, ritual. Pharaoh holding religious power, it must assume the rites imposed by religion. What is a rite? A rite is a standard action, often repetitive and whose effectiveness can not be doubted. The ritual consists of words and gestures considered effective even if in reality we do not see it. The ritual action is operative in the moment where the rite is accomplished, it can take place without witnesses or before a large audience. If the rite takes place in the presence of witnesses, the role of these funds is to report on the fulfillment of the rite and its publicity. Pharaoh performs certain rituals in the secrecy of the sanctuary before the statue of his divine father because he is the only responsible to the creator god of the world's balance. But when it comes to proclaim the divinity of the king, the rite takes place before a large audience, such as the coronation or the Sed festival. Example rite in the presence of witnesses: the opening of the mouth and eyes of the mummy of the pharaoh. This ritual can only be accomplished by the Pharaoh himself since he died, but it is usually his descendant, his eldest son, who will become pharaoh performing the rite (thus a pharaoh in power). The future Pharaoh takes leopard skin priests and performs the rite with gestures (presentation of the adze front of the mouth and eyes) and pronouncing magic words. At the same time the fulfillment of the rite, the deceased Pharaoh (the mummy) is supposed to find life, the use of her senses: speech, sight ... But in reality the effectiveness of the rite is not visible. The ritual is performed before the entire family of the deceased who may testify to the regularity of the funeral and the one who performs the rite carries and proclaims its legitimacy heir son publicly taking care of his late father. Example of "secret" rite and the delegation of power every day in the secret sanctuaries, you nurture the divine statue, like a person. The ritual begins in the morning by the awakening of the god after his nocturnal sleep. Then you have to make the toilet of the god, the dress, the dress of her protective amulets and to eat. This ritual consists of gestures and complex formulas that must be repeated in the same each day. The pharaoh can physically perform this ritual in all the temples of Egypt, so he delegates some of his religious authority to the clergy to perform this task for him. However, it remains the only responsible and the only possible contact with the gods. That is why in the figurative scenes of temples, this is still the king is shown performing the daily ritual divine. To prevent the god is shocked to be served by an unknown officiant, the latter, before opening the cabinet containing the god begins pronounce the reassuring words, "It is the king who ordered me to see the God". Thus, God knows the priest officiates in the name of his son, the pharaoh. The exception with Akhenaton: there was, however, an example with Akhenaton, where the king has not delegated its religious power. At this pharaoh, considered heretical by others, the object of worship is the royal couple themselves, transposition in the real world of heavenly torque Re-Hathor. Only Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti may give worship to the Aten, the sun god only on the altar in the open, the eastern temple of Tell el-Amarna. In this perspective, the priests become useless and lose their power. We understand why they never accepted the religious reforms of Akhenaten. Substituting statue: When the holidays have a goal of both religious and political, Pharaoh may delegate any of its faithful, not a priest, to replace him in the ceremony. But sometimes we use another method, using the statue of Pharaoh missing. At Karnak, before the temple of Seti II, two colossal statues representing the king walking and holding the sacred stick Amon used to guide the processions. These statues role was to remind the virtual presence of ritualistic king. In addition, a statue of the king-size, holding the cane and the club as any pharaoh walking towards the temple, was placed on a wooden sled. This statue was dragged by priests during processions and thus served as a substitute image. This alternative system of a living being physically absent but recalls the statue used for the dead. The missing ritualistic becomes king, as his statue, the beneficiary of a ritual addressed to his ka, like the statue of the deceased. There is therefore something of a role reversal, the king who was to perform the rites is seen, because of his absence, the recipient of the rites. Where the king ritualistic can not delegate its power: there are,  however, circumstances where the king can not resort to the delegation and to assume himself the liturgy. This is the case for example of the great festivals in Thebes, the festival of Opet and the Valley of party where Pharaoh opens the procession carrying the sacred stick of the god Amun. The ritualistic king to serve his people at the end of the Third Dynasty, appears a formula that will be repeated continuously on all funerary temples "Nesout-di-Hotep." The translation of this formula is a problem, it could be translated as "May the king to be pleased that" the god (or gods) so they give an incantatory offering the benefit of the deceased. The offering incantatory ritual is the act performed by the deceased's family claiming the death and offerings placed on the table of offerings in front of the tombstone. For this magic act, the deceased will benefit in the hereafter offerings. It seems that the transfer of real offerings to the imaginary world depend on a king's action with the gods. The ritualistic King uses his power to ask the gods to individually give men the magic power that takes place in the incantatory offering. The ritualistic king is a scientist: the completion of the ritual involves the sovereign officiating has the knowledge and skills to accomplish this task. In the New Kingdom, in the direct worship to the solar star, King sings a hymn in which he appears as a sun priest, declining the extent of his knowledge, "the King (Pharaoh name) knows the secret words of the souls of the East ... he knows where they are when Ra point at the beginning of his way ... ". Pharaoh is obviously based on religious priests skills but it was he who ordered the manufacture of new divine images, it is he who devotes all religious objects.
The essential function of the Pharaoh is indeed fulfilling the rituals.
The main source for this part "ritualistic Pharaoh" is the catalog of the exhibition "Pharaoh" p128 to 135 (by Claude Traunecker)