HADRIAN OFFICIATES AT ANTINOUS OPENING OF THE MOUTH CEREMONY

ON February 1st the Religion of Antinous commemorates the Opening of the Mouth ceremony which was undertaken on the mummy of Antinous to ensure his ability to breathe and speak in the Dwat underworld.

By this date in the year 131 the mood of the entire voyage had changed from rapture to disappointment and finally to all-out grief for Hadrian. 

After the death of Antinous on October 28, his body had undergone the 72-day-long process of mummification, which ended in January. Now, Hadrian returned to preside over the ancient Egyptian ritual called the Opening of the Mouth.

Author MARTIN CAMPBELL provides a very moving fictional recreation of this scene in the Nile-side Tomb of Antinous in his newly published novel THE LOVE GOD. 

While we don't know whether that tomb ever existed, Martin Campbell agrees with historian Royston Lambert that Hadrian most certainly would have presided over some such ceremonies on Egyptian soil.

In this brilliant new novel, the mummy of Antinous is carried into the tomb by seven pallbearers … men who have been hand-picked by the Emperor to become the first priests of Antinous.

They set the mummy in its place for the ceremony and Hadrian explains to each man what he envisions for the new religion. Martin Campbell writes:

"Hadrian stood before each man and dipped his thumb into a vial of liquid. It contained collected, salty liquid from his tears. To each man, he said, 'Accept Antinous as your God. Carry forward his name as our God with my blessing.' He then pressed his damp thumb onto the centre of their foreheads."

Afterwards, the newly ordained Antinous priests watched as Egyptian embalming priests of Anubis, while chanting the sacred words of the Book of the Dead, opened the mouth of Antinous, thereby allowing his spirit to receive homage, which was the high ceremony that opened the way for the immortality of the body.

Antinous was fitted with a vessel of flesh that would last for all eternity.

Antonius Subia explains:

"The Process of mummification was completed on the body of Antinous and the priests of Anubis, while chanting the sacred words of the Book of the Dead, opened the mouth of Antinous, thereby allowing his spirit to receive homage, which was the high ceremony that opened the way for the immortality of the body.

"Antinous was fitted with a vessel of flesh that would last for all eternity. The location of the body of Antinous is unknown, like Isis, a component of the Religion of Antinous is composed of the never-ending search for his scattered, eternal limbs.

"The Opening of the Mouth is sacred to Anubis, the god of mummification, who like a scavenging dog, consumes the flesh of the once living and guides the soul to immortality."