Abydos temple map

The pilgrim must go through successive stages.

The votive temple

which Seti I built in Abydos is in Osiris' image. Less than a traditional temple whose immutable divinity occupies the heart, enclosed in its naos [glossary], and whose priests cross the succession of thresholds each morning in a thousand-year-old ritual, it was meant to be a stone paean exalting the god's passion, the blaze of his stay on Earth, the darkness of his death, the brilliance of his resurrection and, finally, the ecstasy of his justification.

The temple is Osiris ; each of the halls is akin to one of the god's limbs, each of the chapels like a portion of his soul. Once over the threshold, the pilgrim realized hat he was not allowed to enter to celebrate Osiris, but to be associated with his fate, to resonate at his trials, to undergo his anguish, to be comforted by his regained serenity. More than any other temple, Abydos dictates that it be the initiator. As tradition required, the entire monument was enclosed by a continuous wall of unbaked bricks, thick and tall enough to hide the secrets of the courtyards and apartments from the profane. A first pylon determined the axis of the sacred voyage. Once over the threshold, the pilgrim was in a first courtyard, giving on to a second pylon, which itself opened into a second courtyard. Today, only ruins remain of the first courtyard. The interior walls of the first courtyard were decorated with reliefs relating the highlights of the founder's civic life, his campaigns and his victories; those of the second evoked his religious life, his pious acts and, notably, the holy days he offered the god, in long processions of priests bearing daily offerings and solemn gifts.

The second courtyard was oriented on a portico upheld by twelve pillars, each pillar's four faces bearing the effigy of the pharaoh being welcomed to the temple by one of the deities associated with the Osirian myth. Originally, seven doors at regular intervals provided access to the apartments. Unfortunately, Seti never completed the temple; his son and successor felt that completing it was a pious duty. Ramesses II certainly did not possess his father's high religious principles; he standardized the building by walling up four of the seven doors and took advantage of the space thus saved to engrave a long inscription dedicated to his own glory.