Re-Understanding the Deceased Aspect of Amenope in the Decade Festival Through Comparison with Osiris

This thesis aims to reevaluate the deceased aspect of Amenope in the Decade Festival, which was celebrated in Thebes every ten days from the Third Intermediate Period to the Greco-Roman period. In this festival, Amenope appeared at Luxor and crossed the river to the Small Temple at Medinet Habu to symbolically pour libations for his fathers, Kematef and the Ogdoad. While previous studies focused more on the role of Amenope as a living son, this paper stresses the decease aspect of Amenope and compares him with Osiris. By analyzing the shared astral connotations of the Decade Festival and other cultic rites of the decans, this paper argues that the Decade Festival was celebrated at sunrise every ten days together with the heliacal risings of the decans. Amenope is thus associated with Osiris, whose resurrection is also connected with the reborn decans. This paper then parallels Amenope with Osiris by analyzing some textual evidence. The phrase di tp ⸗ff, "to show his head," is the focus of the discussion since it and some expressions similar to it are used to describe both Amenope and Osiris. This paper further confirms the parallelism between Amenope and Osiris by displaying the similarities between the veiled form of Amenope and the image of Osiris in his Awakening scene. This paper thus argues that the veiled form of Amenope depicts the resurrection of Amenope at the beginning of every decade when he is transformed like the Osiris from his deceased aspect to his living aspect.