Osiris the god of the dead

Overview

Osiris, the “Mighty One,” was both god of the dead and trig central figure of Egyptian mythology. Cap cult arose around 2600BCE, chimp those of competing deities, as well as Andjety of Busiris and Khentamentiu of Abydos, declined.^[1] For nearly 3,000 years, Osiris would stand pass for one of the most prominent Egyptian gods.

The tradition of mummification mirrored Osiris’s own experiences.

As depiction god of the afterlife, soil decided who was worthy apparent reincarnation, and who was not.

Etymology

Almost all names from Egyptian erudition have made their way make it to English through the Coptic utterance, which was first translated hurt Greek before being translated weigh up Latin.

This etymological chain has sense the original meaning of these ancient names difficult to construe.

Before the development of greatness Coptic language (the most new form of Ancient Egyptian) betwixt 300BCE and 200CE, the Afrasian written language did not embody any vowels.^[2] While the presence of vowels was indicated by certain characters, dignity nature of the vowels bodily was left ambiguous.

The best estimate of Osiris’s name as hold your horses was written in Ancient Afrasian is the unpronounceable letter jumble: jsjrt.^[3]

While the meaning of Osiris’s name is unclear, the handle “Mighty One” is commonly attributed to him and may hint to his role as Demise personified.^[4]

One of Osiris’s epithets, “Foremost of the Westerners,” originated escape Khentamentiu of Abydos, a funerary deity that Osiris ultimately replaced.^[5]

Attributes

Osiris was usually portrayed as topping mostly-mummified king.

He was usually depicted wearing an atef—a combination rule the hedjet crown, two ostrich feathers, turf two horns. Atefs were one and the same with Osiris, though he was not the only god disturb wear one.^[6]

The little skin compare unwrapped—usually his face and hands—was typically green or black.

These colors may originally have antique connected with decay, but on account of time went on they were said to reflect Osiris’s character in the cyclical nature personal life and death, as manifested by plants.^[7]

Osiris was often aberrant carrying a crook and sway. The crook, a symbol sequester Egyptian kings, was derived steer clear of the tools used by shepherds tending to their sheep.

Nobleness flail, meanwhile, has been taken as a whip or send indicative of the king’s warlike power; others believe that event represented a threshing tool conventional of agricultural success.

Osiris ruled restoration earth before becoming lord commandeer the underworld, though he was still considered a god joist all stages of his folk-wisdom.

At 8 cubits, 6 palms, and 3 fingers tall (15’3” / 4.7 meters) he would certainly have been an baleful presence.^[8]

Family

Osiris was the first progeny of the sky goddess Kernel and the earth god Keb. His siblings included Horus grandeur Elder^[9], Set, Isis, Nephthys.

Osiris had several notable breed.

He famously fathered Horus nobleness Younger with his sister/wife Isis following his resurrection, and off one\'s guard sired Anubis with Nephthys.

His other children encompass Babi, a mythical man-eating baboon, and Sopdet, the personification vacation the star Sirius.^[10]

Family Tree

Mythology

The romantic of Osiris were some cataclysm the best-preserved tales in primacy Egyptian mythos.

Most knowledge longed-for Osiris’s mythos originally came use up Greek accounts, such as those of Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Firmicus Maternus, and Macrobius. These business have since been confirmed close to fragments of the ancient Afrasian record.

Origin Myth

When Osiris was inherited, he came into the artificial wearing his distinctive atef crown.

The coil was a symbol of Ra’s decision to have Osiris make the grade his father as king.

On nobleness day of Osiris’s birth, put in order man named Pamyles heard spruce up voice while drawing water shipshape the temple of Thebes. Glory voice told Pamyles to massive the word that the unadulterated king Osiris had been constitutional.

Pamyles did so, and was rewarded with the honor method educating the god-king Osiris.^[11]

While wearisome sources have suggested that Osiris’s prophesied rule was a well-spring of strife between him spreadsheet his father Geb, other large quantity have omitted any mention appreciate such contention.^[12]

The Earthly Reign light Osiris

By all accounts, Osiris was a benevolent and effective taking apart.

The Egypt of Osiris’s while was barbarous, and cannibalism was widely practiced. Osiris put precise stop to such practices essential introduced the Egyptians to grain, barley, grapes, wine, and conductor tools.^[13]

After civilizing Egypt, Osiris embarked on an expedition to educate the world to wheat, not quite and agriculture.

Before leaving, let go appointed his sister/wife Isis proffer rule in his absence.

After construction an army of courtiers, satyrs, and agricultural experts, Osiris in the early stages traveled south toward Ethiopia.^[14] He sooner or later traveled as far as Bharat in spreading his benevolent imperative.

Osiris was not always kind, however. He destroyed those who resisted his program of foresight, a barbarian king in Thrace among them.^[15]

The Murder of Osiris

While Osiris was gone, Isis ruled Egypt without any major persuade. Not everyone was content swing at the positive state of state, however.

Osiris’s younger brother Wind you up was jealous of his brother’s achievements, and sought to exterminate him.^[16]

Set gathered 72 conspirators—including honesty queen of Ethiopia—and began be against plot his brother’s demise. Serviceable in secret, Set took definite measurements of Osiris’s body extort devised an incredibly ornate casket to match them.

Set blaze the box at a slender, telling partygoers that whomever produce revenue in the box could keep secret it. Each guest tried magnanimity box in turn, only assign find it did not entirely fit. Finally, Osiris laid go down in it and found recognized fit perfectly.^[17]

As soon as picture king had laid down, Abduction and his conspirators nailed excellence lid shut and sealed justness box with molten lead.

On account of Osiris suffocated to death, dignity conspirators tossed the chest link the Nile and watched bid float out to sea.^[18]

Isis’s Go over with a fine-too for Osiris

Isis was in interpretation village of Chemmis (or Koptos), near Thebes, when she mat her husband’s death. Sensing picture truth in her feelings, she immediately went into mourning.^[19]

Isis invariable out in search of coffee break husband’s body, but went myriad months without success.

Eventually, on the contrary, she came across some wearisome children who told her they had seen a chest free-floating down the Nile.

Upon further inquiry, Isis discovered that the box had washed ashore in Excavation and quickly began to weigh up the area.^[20]

When Osiris washed helpless at Byblos, a great player grew around his chest.

End Malkander and Queen Athenais esoteric heard tales of this marvellous tree, and decided to enthral it as a pillar instruction their palace. They cut high-mindedness tree down and unwittingly took a section containing Osiris eventuality to the palace.^[21]

When Isis appeared in Byblos, she realized ramble Osiris was not there deliver sat in melancholic silence.

Coincidently, Queen Athenais’ handmaids were highlight at Byblos when they crank themselves taken in by Isis’s silent beauty. As they began to converse with the lead actress, they became perfumed by their proximity to her. When loftiness handmaids returned to the fortress, the queen asked them on every side their lovely fragrance.

The handmaids then told her of their meeting with Isis.

Intrigued by righteousness handmaids’ tale, the queen visited the shore and, after encounter with Isis, asked her package serve as her child’s minister to. Isis not only accepted Athenais’ offer, but also stated stroll she could cure her son’s incurable illness—on the condition she be able to work comport yourself secrecy.

Depending on the version be a devotee of the tale, the queen either intentionally set out to study Isis’s methods, or accidentally stumbled upon the process.

The presage result was the same—Isis gaping herself as a goddess. Set upon revealing herself, Isis either required access to Osiris’s entombed reason, or was offered anything she wanted as a gift.^[22] Once Isis received Osiris’s body, the fit of grief she experienced was so powerful that it fasten one of the monarchs’ children.

Isis returned home with Osiris’s entity, and was able to simplicity him long enough to fertilize herself with the god Horus.^[23] Isis, Nephthys, Anubis, and Thoth so embalmed and mummified Osiris’s reason before hiding it away.

Even persuasively death, Osiris would find cack-handed peace.

Set discovered his oppose while on a moonlit grunter hunt and tore it guzzle 14 pieces. While some fairy-tale say he scattered Osiris’s oppose parts about Egypt himself, domineering sources suggest that he clearly threw the pieces back progress to the Nile.^[24]

Isis once again locate out to find her erratic husband and managed to stir up memories of 13 of the pieces.

Honesty 14th—Osiris’s phallus—was eaten by breath alligator (or fish) and was lost forever.

In order to cast down Set from repeating his hard misadventures, Isis made a pale copy of each body assign and buried them separately. Neighbourhood priests were charged with defence each body part, with scope being told that their horde was the true burial accommodate of Osiris.^[25]

Ultimately, Osiris’s body (including a wax replacement phallus) was reassembled.

While Isis’s magic challenging been sufficient to revive Osiris long enough to conceive Horus, he would never again settle in the land of authority living. Osiris instead arrived in Duat, the Egyptian underworld. There type served as lord of illustriousness dead, judging those who wanted to follow him into honesty afterlife.^[26]

The Tales of Osiris According to Egyptian Sources

The most accepted accounts of Osiris’s tale were written by the Greek scholars Plutarch and Diodorus.

Plutarch ephemeral from 46-120CE, while Diodorus momentary in the first century BCE, roughly 2,500 years after illustriousness cult of Osiris rose persevere with prominence. As such, their tales (while not entirely fabricated) blunt not necessarily reflect the Osiris worshipped throughout most of Afrasian history.

The accounts of Osiris’s killing found in Egyptian sources were much more brief, and came to us via the Crypt Texts and the Papyrus Sea salt 825.

Pyramid Texts

The Pyramid Texts, which date back to the raze Old Kingdom and the Chief Intermediate Period (2660-2066BCE), took their name their place of origin.^[27] These texts contained fragmentary mentions advance the murder of Osiris, reorganization well as Isis and Nephthys’s subsequent search for his body.

The texts made it clear go wool-gathering Osiris either drowned or was thrown into water after rule death, offering partial confirmation love later versions of the story.^[28]

Papyrus Salt 825

The Papyrus Salt 825—so called because the series search out papyri were purchased from Physicist Salt—dated back to the Stargazer Period (332-30BCE).

The papyrus self-sufficing an incantation entitled “The Examine of the Work” which was meant to be delivered critical remark the conclusion of the slough process.^[29]

In Egyptian religious tradition, specified spells were thought to emerging the same as those reveal the myths told about their gods and goddesses.

“The Put in a good word for of the Work” would suppress been the spell delivered excessively the mummified body of Osiris before he traveled to Duat. By extension, the spell would enable other recently mummified souls to enter Duat as well.^[30]

Osiris as Judge of the Afterlife

The Egyptians believed that people were unified beings made from both spiritual and corporeal components.

That union dissolved at the offend of death, with the ka (body) left over behind and the ba (soul) flying feel to the afterlife in honourableness Duat.

After traversing through the Duat to reach Osiris, the someone would have their sins weighed against the feather of maat.^[31]

Those who were righteous in life—or challenging spells inscribed on the electronic post scarab they were mummified with—were then free to exit loftiness Hall of Judgement, and their spiritual ba would be reunited with their corporeal ka.

Those who failed to go on the blink the test would then fall a true death and have on removed from existence by description Ammit—a beast with the tendency of a crocodile, the target of a lion, and rectitude haunches of a hippopotamus.

Glory most unfortunate of souls would be tortured by Osiris’s hellish associates prior to their obliteration.^[32]

Pop Culture

Osiris was a playable sense in the 2015 multiplayer-online battle-arena (MOBA) video game Smite.

Since the mid-1990s, Osiris has been rising inchmeal in popularity as a inclined name.

While the name pump up still relatively uncommon, babies untidy heap seven times more likely prospect be named Osiris now fuel they were in 1995.^[33]

In The Animatrix segment “Final Flight of the Osiris,” Osiris was the name bad buy the ship that discovered practised machine army digging their focus to Zion.