Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

How Ancient Egyptians Celebrated New Year


Fri 01 Jan 2021 | 02:38 PM
Rana Atef

Ancient Egyptians were among the earliest nations that celebrated the new year. According to Dr. Mostafa Waziri, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Luxor, Aswan, Giza, and other upper Egypt major cities had special new year's celebrations known as Wep-Renpet.

He expressed that Luxor had various seasonal celebrations and festivals, the durations of those celebrations were different.

Waziri clarified that those celebrations mainly took place inside temples and in the main streets, and they were connected to their ancient gods and the seasons of agriculture.

Moreover, the ancient Egyptians documented a lot of their festive celebrations on the temples' walls such as Ramsses III Temples at Habu, Luxor.

He also said that the current celebration of Saidi El Hagag is a contemporary form of the ancient Amun parade during the Opet festival.

They believed that Amun-Ra, the king of the gods, leaves Karnak Temple and moves to his wife Mut at Luxor Temple. Celebrating the Opet lasted for almost 27 days in the old Thebes.