The Egyptian Calendar Months 8 & 9.

The planting season (peret) was ending; the season of harvest (shemu) was starting. Over these two months, Egyptians looked to the fields, and the gods that would protect the growth of the crops. To guarantee divine favour and protection, they looked to beings that would protect them from hardship or hazard. In particular, they worshipped Bastet (the cat), and Renenutet (the Snake-Who-Nourishes).

Month 8

Pa-Renenutet, “The (Month) of Renenutet.”

The Season of Growing (Peret) ends.

Day 4: festival of Bast, also recorded as the day of chewing onions for Bast.

Day 5: appearance of Bast in her boat, according to a Dynasty 26 statue (Louvre A88).

Day 25: harvest offering to Renenutet, according to a depiction in Theban Tomb-chapel 38

Day 27: granary offering to Renenutet, according to a depiction in Theban tomb-chapel 48

The eighth month was called “Pa-Renen-utet,” which translates to “The (Month) of The Snake Who Nourishes.” This is a reference to the goddess of the same name, the great lady Renen-utet, who was the object of worship in this time.

Festival of Bastet

The first festival of the month was a celebration of the goddess Bastet, the cat goddess. One of Egypt’s oldest deities, Bastet was a natural friend to farmers: cats kept mice, snakes and other vermin away from the crops. So, the cat goddess was a protector of agriculture, and as the planting season came to its end, farmers up and down the Nile looked to Bastet with love.

On day 4 of the month, Egyptians began a two-day celebration of their divine protector. Farmers donned amulets of cats, headed for their local shrine, and congregated for the festival. With them, they took a bunch of onions.

The first day of the Bastet festival was called the Day of Eating Onions for Bastet. That may sound strange, but there was a logic to it: let me explain .

Onions were plentiful in the Egyptian diet, and the ancients attributed a number of healthy properties to the vegetable. To start with, onions were used in a variety of medicines, mainly to cure inflammations or mild ailments (some of these recipes may also be referring to garlic, but it’s unclear if the Egyptians differentiated between the two). Onions also had a magical property: they were used to ward off the evil eye, to keep danger away from the individual. So, eating onions was a way of gaining some personal protection against demons

The Egyptian word for onion was hedju; and this had its own special meaning as well. Hedju was cognate with the word hedj or “destroy;” so hedju-onions might be thought of as “destroyers;” only, destroyers working for the individual, rather than against them. So, like the amulets of Bastet which they wore on their chest, the onions that farmers took to the Bastet festival were a valuable tool in the fight against evil. So, destroyer-onions in hand, the farmers congregated at their local shrines, ready to worship the goddess. We can assume that this was a society-wide celebration: men, women and children all had a stake in, and participated in the agricultural lifestyle, so the worship of Bastet was not limited to any one group. As you can imagine, when they got together, the party really began.

According to Herodotus (the Father of History, or the Father of Lies depending on your point of view), the festival of Bastet was one of the more hedonistic in the Egyptian calendar. He says, in his Histories, that the festival of Bastet went as follows, “[the Egyptians] sail, men and women together, and a great multitude of each sex in every boat; and some of the women have rattles and [make music] with them, while some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands;  when they come to any city they bring the boat to land, and some of the women continue to [make music] as I have said, others cry aloud and jeer at the women in that city, some dance, and some stand up and lift up their dresses. This they do by every city along the riverbank; and when they come to [the city of Bastet] they hold [a] festival celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine is consumed upon that festival than during the whole of the rest of the year” (Quote via ARCE).

Image: The Gayer-Anderson cat. Photo by Einsamer Schütze, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Festival of Renenutet

Three weeks after the festival of Bastet, in the last week of month 8, the Egyptians celebrated the festival of Renenutet (The Snake-Who-Nourishes).

Renen-utet took the form of a large serpent or cobra. Sometimes she appears as a woman with a snake’s head, sometimes as a snake topped with a woman’s head and wig. She was, unlike most snakes, seen as a protector. Renenutet was a kind deity, responsible for the growth of crops, and the nursing of children. Whether she was in the fields, or in the nursery, Renenutet was a goddess that nurtured growth, encouraged vitality, and provided for her people. For this, Egyptians knew her as “The Lady of the Fertile Land.” She was a kind figure in the pantheon.

The Festival of Renenutet took place over six or seven days, three of which were particularly important. Unusually, her festival overlapped between months 8 and 9, so as the farmers looked forward to a change of seasons, priests of Renenutet were looking forward to a grand moment in the spotlight. On day 25 of the month, priests made an offering of grain to Renenutet. The serpent goddess would hopefully take this gift and apply her powers to protect the fields from harm: rodents could be caught by snakes; and with a bit of goodwill, farmers would be safe from any ankle-bites. Offerings to the goddess would aim to achieve this benefit.

Records from the Ptolemaic period tell us that, at the festivals of Renenutet, farmers would offer a portion of the harvest to the goddess. In many cases, the temples of the goddesses happened to be located near vineyards and wine-producers; so, as you can imagine, a large portion of the offering was nothing less than good vintage alcohol. This wine, obviously, went into the temples first, where they were used in offerings and then being distributed to the priests. But after internal distribution, the rest was sent out into the gathered congregation. Which means that for every jar of wine offered, a large portion was going into the mouths of the faithful. So…like the festival of Bastet, the worship of Renenutet soon turned into a hedonistic celebration of life and growth. Essentially, the last week of the month was one giant party.

Farmers and priests stumbled towards the end of Pa-Renenutet in a drunken haze. When they awoke, a new month had begun.

Renenutet: Art by PharaohCrab via Wikimedia.

Month 9

Pa-en-Khonsu, “The (Month) of Khonsu.”

The Season of Harvest (Shemu) begins.

Day 1: festival of Renenutet, also identified as the birthday of Nepri (personification of grain).

Day 10: adoration of Anubis.

Day 11: festival of Min, a 4-day festival at the New Moon according to the great Festival Calendar in the temple for Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.

This month was named in honour of Khonsu, a deity popular in Waset (Thebes / Luxor). The son of Amun and Mut, who influenced fertility in the farmlands, and extended healing powers to the sick, Khonsu was benevolent, and his power was great. But apart from having the month named after him, Khonsu didn’t appear at all in its festivities.

As day one of Pa-en-Khons proceeded, worshippers wrapped up their celebrations in honour of Renenutet. The month of planting was now done, and farmers would need to begin work on the harvest. As a result, they kept the 9th month light on the festivals, and focussed on protecting the fertility of the land.

The first day of Pa-en-Khons, also the last day of the Renenutet festival, was dedicated to a now-forgotten version of Osiris. This was the worship of “Osiris the Child” or “Baby Osiris,” who bore the name Nepri.

Nepri (or Neper)was a god associated with the growth of the crops, and the nourishment of the people. So, he was a natural fit for the festival of Renenutet: like the serpent goddess, Nepri cared for and encouraged growth among his people. 

Image: Nepri, by PharaohCrab, via Wikimedia.

After the festival of Renenutet, the month of Pa-en-Khonsu was quiet. There was a brief festival to Anubis on Day 10, and a celebration for Min at the New Moon. But apart from that, the temples were mostly quiet. After all, most farmers (and officials) were hard at work gathering and tallying up the harvests. After all, now that the final season had begun, there were just a few short months to ripen, harvest, and gather the crops. Soon, the flood would begin; time was now of the essence.

The month of Pa-en-Khonsu marked the beginning of the third and last season in the Egyptian calendar. This was the season of Shemu or “Low Water;” it was the time when the Nile was at its lowest ebb, before the monsoon rains brought the inundation again. The climate was getting hotter, the summer was approaching. Soon, Egyptians would be working through incredible heat. As you can imagine, the pressure was on to get everything done before the summer got too intense.

So the month of Pa-en-Khonsu was quiet, in its festivals. Apart from the New Moon festival to Min – another god associated with fertility – the celebrations were minor. So, by the time the month ended, Egyptians must have been looking forward to some rest.

Unfortunately, they were going to have to wait a good six weeks, as the upcoming tenth month was sadly devoid of popular festivals. Except for one, an incredibly personal one, not unlike an Egyptian “Day of the Dead.” All that on the next mini episode…

Bibliography

ARCE: https://arce.org/resource/goddess-bastet-and-cult-feline-deities-nile-delta/

Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, 2003.

Anthony J. Spalinger, “Ancient Egyptian Calendars,” in C.L.N. Ruggles (ed.) Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, 2015.