Hello and welcome back to the History of Egypt podcast. This is a mini episode, Koyak festivities,

part four in our 12-part series on the Egyptian year and its religious ceremonies.

Koyak is a Greek version of the Egyptian kha-her-kha, or kha-upon-kha.

By kha, the Egyptians mean the essence or vitality, part of the soul.

And so the month of Koyak, Ka-her-Kha, is soul upon soul.

We'll see why throughout this episode, the month was dedicated extensively to religious

festivals centered around the myths of the dead, in particular the great god Osiris.

In this time, the Egyptians celebrated the last phase in their long reenactment of that great

legend, the tale of Osiris. By the end of the month, the Egyptians would have celebrated a divine marriage, a blue-collar

workers' festival, and the final phase in the burial and honouring of Osiris, the eternal

father of the king of Egypt.

Let's dive in.

Music Let's dive in. Koyak, also called Nehebkau, began in approximately November.

As the fourth month of the flood or inundation, Koyak was the final month in the season of Akhet.

After a slightly quiet third month, the month of Koyak began with a festival dedicated to the great goddess Hathor.

As a way of closing out the month that had gone before, a month named Hathor, this little ceremony was aimed at giving the goddess one last celebration before the year continued.

Interestingly, it seems to have involved the goddess getting married. The Koyac Festival of Hathor was named the Kennet Hutt-Her, or the sailing of Hathor.

The sailing of Hathor is an elusive festival and probably varied from place to place.

The basic gist of it was, the statue of Hathor, hidden in her local sanctuary,

would be taken out of the shrine and placed on board a small, portable boat. The boat was carried

out of the temple by the priests, and so the goddess emerged into public. As you can imagine,

she was a crowd-favor favourite. The celebration of Hathor

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