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Oliver Garland uses a semiotic approach to interpret texts on five stone monuments (stelae) from Abydos, Egypt that provide details about the Procession of Osiris that was performed there annually during ancient times. Close readings of royal commands and descriptions of ritual actions reveal tensions between competing theories of mimesis. The Ikhernofret stela is found to contain an early, if not the first, record of self-identification by an actor.
Journey southward together with a crew of sailors. Do not sleep night nor day until you reach Abydos. Cause Foremost-of-theWesterners [Osiris] to proceed, for I will make his monuments as at the time of creation. (Simpson, Literature 341)
This command of Pharaoh Neferhotep I was inscribed on a limestone slab or stela that was placed in a small chapel among a multitude of other such chapels on a sloping hillside in Abydos, Egypt circa 1745 BCE. As reconstructed by William Kelly Simpson, the chapels provided the stelae (plural) a roof and surrounding walls for shelter, a ground-level table for offerings of food, and, over a short wall, a view of the valley below (Simpson 7).
Abydene stele were given such care because they were seen as participants in an annual religious performance event centered on the god Osiris. (Scholars sometimes refer to this event as the "Abydos Passion Play" but Neferhotep's command to "cause [Osiris] to proceed" suggests "Procession of Osiris" and that will be the term I use). The chapel was a box seat for the stela with a commanding view of the processional route, a roof, and a table. Simpson writes,
This private chapel is in the nature of an ex-voto whereby the dedicator seeks for himself and family first an eternal association with the mysteries of the local deities, at such times as they are celebrated, and second a share of the offerings then made after they have been used by the gods. . . . [T]he emphasis of the text is on the owner's hoped for association with the celebration of the Abydene festivals, and this is sometimes expressed as the purpose of the building. (Simpson, Terrace 3)
An example is the stela of Sebek-khu: "I made for myself this offering chapel, it being made effective, its place being made excellent,...