Washington D.C.: Feast and Festivity in the Heb Sed Celebrations

Lecture Information

In ancient Egyptian culture, certain celebrations and practices continued for millennia. Pharaohs prided themselves on finding records already ancient in their own times and following the oldest practices.

The Heb Sed is one of the most important of these. This “jubilee” has often been viewed by modern scholars strictly through the lens of its religious practices, obscure symbolic activities, and its meaning in the pharaonic concept of kingship. But it is clear from the reliefs that accompany some depictions of the Heb Sed that music, dancing, and feasting were an integral part of the festivities. 

This lecture will look at these forms of mass celebration and their place in the Heb Sed.

Speaker Bio

Lyn Green received her PhD from the University of Toronto for a dissertation on the royal women of the end of the 18th dynasty, a period from which we have representations of the Heb Sed festivals that took place in the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten.

Dr. Green has excavated at the sites of Tell el-Amarna and at East Karnak (site of a palace and temple from the reign of Akhenaten). For a number of years she worked for the Akhenaten Temple Project, researching the talatat blocks used to build the palaces and temples of pharaoh Akhenaten at Thebes. She is the author of popular and scholarly articles, encyclopedia entries, and book chapters on various aspects of the end of the 18th dynasty. She has lectured extensively in both Canada and the U.S. Currently she is a Research Associate of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.