Abstract
In the Egyptian context of the first millennium B.C., where gods and goddesses were frequently named king or queen, and where a plethoric and highly hierarchical clergy was at their service, the expression " court of the god ", which constitutes the central theme of this colloquium, cannot fail to evoke a royal court and its functioning. Transposed into a religious context, the polysemy of the term " court " - designating both a specific architectural space of the temple and, by metonymy, the high-ranking priests who constitute the immediate entourage of the god who resides there - takes on all the more significance as the temple court is precisely the place where, intensively at the time, members of the priestly elite are authorized to make themselves visible and readable to their successors, through the inscribed statues dedicated to them.
Through an examination of priestly epigraphic inscriptions, from both autobiographies and temple inscriptions, we shall attempt to present some aspects of the image that Egyptian priests give of themselves, of their personal relationship to divinity and to the priestly class, and the implications this may have in terms of court etiquette and esprit de corps. Indeed, in the first millennium, an evolution in the priests' perception of their place, individually and collectively, in the temple seems detectable.
