The StA-Garment of Horus. An Example of Integrating the Foreign King into the Egyptian Belief System
Abstrakt
Linen is quite a common offering gift depicted on the walls of Ptolemaic and Roman temples. Its presentation was supposed to ensure health, royal power, protection or other privileges and manifestations of the god's favour.
From the beginnings of Egyptian civilization, cloth and linen were a highly valued commodity; different kinds of fabrics and garments are evidenced, some of them occur only in some periods and then at some points they disappear, while others are documented all throughout the history. One of the garments, known already since the Old Kingdom, is the StA-garment.
It originally occurred in the Pyramid Texts and since that moment in time it has been strongly connected with Horus - it was often designated as the StA-garment of Horus and this deity is also most often the donor of this kind of cloth. Although documented from the Old Kingdom to the end of Egyptian history, the widest use definitely occurs during the Ptolemaic Period where it is attested almost exclusively in the temples of Edfu and Dendera.
Through its relation to Horus and thus a firm connection to the kingship over the land and its inheritance, it seems that at this time receiving the StA-garment becomes a very important means to legitimize the rule of the Ptolemies, originally foreign kings, in Egypt.