Kings and gods adorn the walls of Egyptian temples in face-to-face
meetings, and for two millennia these depictions have united the king
and the divine. The king, the son of the god, presents his ancestors an
offering or performs a ritual.




Over two hundred offerings are divided into broad categories:
purification, beverages, foods, produce from the fields, fabrics,
ointments and adornments; rituals for goddesses and gods; symbolic,
cosmic, funerary and defensive rituals; and royal cult rituals. All are
explained, from their simple action (e.g. offering beer as a daily
drink) to their symbolic meaning (beer is also a sacred drink that
induces ecstasy of a divine nature which annihilates the destructive
force of the daughter of Ra). A drawing and photographs illustrate each
offering. The title of the offering is given in hieroglyphs to enable
everyone to locate the words on the temple walls. Translations of the
most significant texts accompany each of the offerings. Most of the
texts in this book date to the last period of Egyptian history
(Graeco-Roman period, 300 B.C. to A.D. 300) where the decoration is
enriched with complex inscriptions, written in so-called "Ptolemaic"
that very few Egyptologists are able to translate.