Quick questions on Religion and the cult of Amun in New Kingdom Egypt to the death of Thutmose IV: HSC Ancient History

At the start of the Eighteenth Dynasty Amun ("the hidden one") was a relatively minor local god of Thebes. His transformation into the supreme god of the Egyptian state was driven by the fortunes of the Theban kings who worshipped him.

Holding all of this together was the ideology of divine kingship. The king was Amun's son and chosen agent on earth, ruling as the god's representative and mediator between Egypt and the divine. The Theban triad (Amun, his consort Mut, and their son Khonsu, the moon god) mirrored, and reinforced, the human royal family at the head of the state.

At its head stood the High Priest of Amun (the "First Prophet"), a position of major economic and administrative weight, not merely a ritual role. The office of God's Wife of Amun, endowed for the royal woman Ahmose-Nefertari early in the dynasty (recorded on a donation stela), gave a member of the royal family a powerful, wealthy religious title, binding crown and cult together at the top.

The priesthood also controlled the mechanism by which Amun "spoke". During festivals the god's cult image was carried in a portable barque, and its movements were read as the god's will, an oracle. This could confirm appointments and even authorise a king.

Two great Theban festivals performed royal legitimacy in public. The Opet Festival carried Amun's image from Karnak to Luxor to renew the pharaoh's royal ka (divine life-force); Hatshepsut's Red Chapel at Karnak depicts the procession. The Beautiful Feast of the Valley carried Amun across the Nile to the West Bank to visit the royal mortuary temples, binding the reigning king to Amun and to the royal dead, while ordinary families feasted at their own tombs.