Sunday 4 April 2021

The Holy Barques of the Gods and Kings in Ancient Egypt

 The holy Barque of Ra began its journey  across the sky each day at sunrise and was known as Mandjet As the Barque of Ra descended into the west in the evening, it entered the underworld where the Apophis snake waited to attack it. Try and imagine the tombs with an invisible passage of water that flows within a dark tunnel of fear and chaos that could ultimately lead you to the light and eternity. A golden solar barque that has soaked in the rays of the sun during the hours of the day will now be empowered to travel through the caverns and darkness of the night on this eternal carrier of light, and it waits for you, your perilous journey through the underworld has begun. 

The Nile River was the source of life for the ancient Egyptians and it played a huge part in their religious beliefs. At night, the Milky Way was considered to represent the heavenly River Nile, and the solar barques of the deceased kings sailed the milky way with their companions to help them travel through the perilous hours of the night, to hopefully reach eternity at sunrise. Other gods, as well as the souls of the justified dead, would travel on the barque with Ra to protect him and his barque from Apophis during its journey through the underworld. Every night the gods, souls, and humanity joined together to battle chaos and darkness and preserve life and light, and each time they won, the sun rose in the morning, and the dawn light was an assurance that all was well with Ra and life on earth would continue. As the barque sailed across the sky, however, Apophis returned to life in the underworld and would be waiting again once night fell; and so the battle would have to be fought again.

All the pharaohs and the Gods had their own holy Barques, The barques could be actual sailing vessels or ceremonial barques carried on poles in festivals. Amenhotep 111 (also known as Amenophis) had his palace at Malkata on the West Bank on the edge of the desert, the palace had its own harbour and a canal that lead to the River Nile, so that he could sail down the canal onto the river, Amenhoteph's barque was called 'Aten Sparkles'.  The Goddess Hathor whose earthly home is Dendera Temple had a barque that she would travel in once a year to visit her husband the God Horus,  in his earthly home of Edfu, her barque was called 'Great of Love'

On the ceiling in the court of Heaven at Dendera Temple there is a  procession of barques that carry all the gods of the sky, surrounding them and above their heads are golden stars which represent the homes of departed souls, and the silver and golden star gates to travel back and forth between heaven and earth.




The Pharaohs built beautiful barque chapels inside Karnack Temple that can be seen in the open air museum in the precincts of Karnack Temple. the materials used were various shades of alabaster, turin, limestone, and the most unusual barque chapel in the museum was created by Hatshepsut for the God Amun. Hatshepsut began the creation of the Red Chapel during the later years of her reign to replace the alabaster chapel of Amenophis 1 and as original as ever she chose to make it from Red Quartzite blocks, an unusual choice of material to use as it has a deep red ochre colour and not normally chosen for a barque shrine. The rectangular shape has three doorways, two rooms, and an open roof.  The first room is a small vestibule and the larger second room was the sanctuary to shelter the boat of Amon on a small altar of rest.  The floor is paved and has a gully that the waters of purification would flow through during the ritual ceremonies







In the tombs  pharaohs had miniature boats made of wood and clay that were buried next to the mummy, in this way these boats were of the utmost importance to ensure the deceased passage to another life.

The  ship of Khufu is an intact full-size vessel that was sealed into a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC. The ship was discovered in 1954 by an Egyptian archeologist and has been fully reassembled and is on display in the Giza Solar boat museum, Khufu would sail through the heavens in the afterlife in this amazing vessel.





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