Editing Sahure (section)

==== Religious activities ====

[[File:Aswan, Elephantine, west bank, Egypt, Oct 2004.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Photography of the Nile with a lush green papyrus plants and palm trees in the background|Sahure might have visited Elephantine early in his reign.]]

The majority of Sahure's activities in Egypt recorded on the Palermo stone are religious in nature. This royal annal records that in the "year of the first time of traveling around", Sahure journeyed to the [[Elephantine]] fortress, where he may have received the submission of the Nubian chiefs in a ceremonial act connected with the commencement of his reign.{{sfn|Goedicke|1988|p=119}}{{sfn|Sethe|1903|loc=243,3}} The fashioning of six statues of the king as well as the subsequent [[Opening of the mouth ceremony|opening of the mouth ceremonies]] are also reported.{{sfn|Dunn Friedman|Friedman|1995|p=29 & Fig. 18b p. 31}}
During Sahure's fifth year on the throne, the Palermo stone mentions the making of a divine barge, possibly in [[Heliopolis (Ancient Egypt)|Heliopolis]], the appointment of 200 priests and the exact quantity of daily offerings of bread and beer to [[Ra]] (138, 40 and 74 measures in three temples), [[Hathor]] (4 measures), [[Nekhbet]] (800 measures) and [[Wadjet]] (4,800 measures) fixed by the king.{{sfn|Strudwick|2005|pp=71–72}} Also reported are gifts of lands to temples of between 1{{nbs}}and 204 arouras (0.7 to nearly 140 acres).{{sfn|Breasted|1906|pp=108–110}} Concerning Lower Egypt, the stone register corresponding to this reign gives the earliest known mention of the city of [[Athribis]] in the Delta region.{{sfn|Rowland|2011|p=29}}

Further indication of religious activities lies in that Sahure is the earliest known king to have used the Egyptian title of ''Nb írt-ḫt''.{{sfn|Routledge|2007|p=216}} This title, possibly meaning "Lord of doing effective things", indicates that he personally performed physical cultic activities to ensure the existence and persistence of the [[Maat]], the Egyptian concept of order and justice.{{sfn|Routledge|2007|p=220}} This title remained in use until the time of [[Herihor]], some 1500 years later.{{sfn|Routledge|2007|p=194}} Sahure's reign is also the earliest during which the ceremony of the "driving of the calves" is known to have taken place. This is significant in the context of the progressive emergence of the cult of [[Osiris]] throughout the Fifth Dynasty, as this ceremony subsequently became an integral part of the [[Osiris myth]]. In subsequent times, the ceremony corresponded to [[Set (deity)|Seth]]'s threshing of Osiris by driving calves trampling fields of barley.{{sfn|Tooley|1996|p=174|loc=footnote 22}}

Sahure reorganized the cult of his mother, Nepherhetepes{{nbs}}II, whose mortuary complex had been built by Userkaf in Saqqara.{{sfn|Baud|1999a|p=336}} He added an entrance portico with four columns to her temple, so that the entrance was not facing Userkaf's pyramid any more.{{sfn|Baud|1999a|p=336}}{{sfn|Labrousse|1997|p=265}}