Festivals, Religion, and Economy The Evidence from the Sun Temple of Niuserre

In 1901, during the latest phases of excavation of the sun temple of Nyuserra, Ludwig Borchardt found, in the area of the valley temple, a considerable number of inscribed fragments that formed what is considered to be the oldest example of a feasts calendar in ancient Egypt so far. According to Wolfgang Helck, who first attempted the complete reconstruction of these inscribed fragments in 1977, the calendar was placed on the entrance gate of the valley temple of the solar complex, arranged at both sides of it and shaped in two similar — though not identical — inscriptions (the so-called ‘Weihinschrift A-B’). Although several aspects concerning its reconstruction and spatial arrangement remain unclear, the calendar remains an unparalleled source of information for our knowledge of the religious and cultic life of Nyuserra’s sun temple as well as a unique means for the understanding of the ideological and socio-economic role played by the sun temples in Fifth Dynasty Egypt. Moreover, by comparing the above documentation with other contemporary sources, such as the Abusir Papyri and the inscriptions from private tombs, we can grasp a deeper view of the religious landscape of the Memphite area in the mid-third millennium BC, in which festivals acted as a real coalescence point of ancient Egyptian religion.