448 ANNUAL. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 11»24 



acclaimed by the people, who prayed that he would celebrate there 

 a Sed festival. " His Majesty proceeded to the palace of Namlot, 

 and entered every chamber. He caused that there be brou^^ht to 

 him the king's wives and the king's daughters. They saluted His 

 Majesty in the fashion of women," but the Ethiopian says that he 

 would not turn his face to them, and he did not celebrate a Sed 

 festival. The most important point in connection with the festival 

 is that at it the king assumed the protection of the land of Egypt. 

 It was a kind of coronation festival. On Menes's mace head the king 

 is shown assuming the red crown, while before him is the princess 

 of the country that he had conquered, and below her is a statement 

 of the number of prisoners and cattle captured by him in her 

 country. 



Now what were the rules that regulated the succession to the Idng- 

 ship in Ancient Egypt? It is often assumed that the kingship was 

 hereditary in the male line, and that the son regularly succeeded his 

 father on the throne. But we know that many Egj^ptian kings were 

 not the sons of their predecessors. We also know that at some pe- 

 riods, at all events, the sovereign based his claim to the kingship upon 

 the fact that he had married the hereditary princess. Harmhab, at 

 the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, tells us that he proceeded 

 to the palace at Thebes, and there, in the Great House (pr-wr), 

 married the hereditary princess. Then the gods, " the lords of the 

 House of Flame (pr-nsrt), were in exultation because of his corona- 

 tion, and they prayed Amon that he would grant to Harmhab the 

 Sed festivals of Re." It was after his marriage to the princess that 

 Harmhab's titulary was fixed. The reference to the House of Flame 

 is interesting because the kindling of fire was an important ceremony 

 at the Sed festival; it is figured at Soleb, and there a priestess 

 called " the Divine Mother of Suit " plays an important role. This 

 priestess may be compared with Vesta, who alwa3^s bore the official 

 title of " Mother," never that of " Virgin." It is unnecessary for 

 me to speak of the King's fire and the vestal virgins whose duty it 

 was to keep the perpetual fire burning; the material has been col- 

 lected by Sir James Frazer> This ceremony of kindling fire suggests 

 that the festival may have been a marriage festival, and the running 

 men figured on the mace head of Menes, and in later representa- 

 tions, also points to this interpretation of it. There can be little 

 doubt that it was a Libyan festival; at all events it is first found 

 when Menes assumed the red crown of Neith of Saie. When Menes 

 had conquered the northwestern Delta, he married the hereditary 

 princess of the country. She was probably the eldest daughter, or 

 perhaps the widow, of the Lower Egyptian king whose country he 

 had seized. Marriage with the king's widow or eldest daughter car- 

 ried tlie throne with it as a matter of right, and Menes's marriage. 



