Osiris (, from Egyptian wsjr) was the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother Set cut him to pieces after killing him, Osiris's sister-wife, Isis, with her sister Nephthys, searched Egypt to find each part of him. She collected all but one – Osiris's genitalia. She then wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion."History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I. to the Death of Justinian", The Suppression of Paganism – ch22, p. 371, John Bagnell Bury, Courier Dover Publications, 1958,
Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, as well as brother and husband of Isis, and brother of Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, with Horus the Younger being considered his posthumously begotten son.Kane Chronicles Through syncretism with Iah, he was also a god of the Moon.Quirke, S.; Spencer, A. J. (1992). The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt. London: The British Museum Press.
Osiris was the lord of the dead and the underworld, the "Lord of Silence""The Burden of Egypt", J. A. Wilson, p. 302, University of Chicago Press, 4th imp 1963 and Khenti-Amentiu, meaning "Foremost of the Westerners".Collier, Mark; Manley, Bill (1998). How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, British Museum Press, p. 41, In the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) the pharaoh was considered a son of the sun god Ra who, after his death, ascended to join Ra in the sky. After the spread of the Osiris cult, however, the kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead, they would unite with him and inherit eternal life through imitative magic."Man, Myth and Magic", Osiris, vol. 5, pp. 2087–2088, S.G.F. Brandon, BPC Publishing, 1971. Through the hope of new life after death, Osiris began to be associated with the cycles in nature, in particular the sprouting of vegetation and annual flooding of the Nile River, as well as the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year. He became the sovereign that granted all life, "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful".
The first evidence of the worship of Osiris is from the middle of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (25th century BCE), though it is likely he was worshipped much earlier;Griffiths, John Gwyn (1980). The Origins of Osiris and His Cult. Brill. p. 44 the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the First Dynasty, and was used as a pharaonic title. Most information available on the Osiris myth is derived from allusions in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", and much later, in the narratives of Greek authors including Plutarch"Isis and Osiris", Plutarch, translated by Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936, vol. 5 Loeb Classical Library. Penelope.uchicago.edu and Diodorus Siculus."The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus", vol. 1, translated by G. Booth, 1814.
Etymology of the name
Osiris is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek , which in turn is the Greek adaptation of the original name in the Egyptian language. In Egyptian hieroglyphs the name appears as wsjr, which some Egyptologists instead choose to transliterate as ꜣsjr or jsjrj. Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels, Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways, such as Asar, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, or Usire.
Several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name; as Egyptologist Mark J. Smith notes, none are fully convincing. Most take wsjr as the accepted transliteration, following Adolf Erman:
John Gwyn Griffiths (1980), "bearing in mind Erman's emphasis on the fact that the name must begin with an [sic] w", proposes a derivation from wsr with an original meaning of "The Mighty One". Kurt Sethe (1930) proposes a compound st-jrt, meaning "seat of the eye", in a hypothetical earlier form *wst-jrt; this is rejected by Griffiths on phonetic grounds. David Lorton (1985) takes up this same compound but explains st-jrt as signifying "product, something made", Osiris representing the product of the ritual mummification process. Wolfhart Westendorf (1987) proposes an etymology from wꜣst-jrt "she who bears the eye". : Mais qui est donc Osiris ? Ou la politique sous le linceul de la religion Mark J. Smith (2017) makes no definitive proposals but asserts that the second element must be a form of jrj ("to do, make") (rather than jrt ("eye")).
However, recently alternative transliterations have been proposed:
Yoshi Muchiki (1990) reexamines Erman's evidence that the throne hieroglyph in the word is to be read ws and finds it unconvincing, suggesting instead that the name should be read ꜣsjr on the basis of Aramaic, Phoenician, and Old South Arabian transcriptions, readings of the throne sign in other words, and comparison with ꜣst ("Isis"). James P. Allen (2000) reads the word as jsjrt but revises the reading (2013) to jsjrj and derives it from js-jrj, meaning "engendering (male) principle".
Appearance
Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown, which is similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side. He also carries the crook and flail. The crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god. The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherd's whip, fly-whisk, or association with the god Andjety of the ninth nome of Lower Egypt proposed.The Oxford Guide: Essential Guide to Egyptian Mythology, Edited by Donald B. Redford, pp. 302–307, Berkley, 2003,
He was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green (the color of rebirth) or black (alluding to the fertility of the Nile floodplain) in mummiform (wearing the trappings of mummification from chest downward)."How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs", Mark Collier & Bill Manley, British Museum Press, p. 42, 1998,
Early mythology
The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with the sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, is found: "An offering the king gives and Anubis". By the end of the Fifth Dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes "An offering the king gives and Osiris"."Architecture of the Afterlife: Understanding Egypt's pyramid tombs", Ann Macy Roth, Archaeology Odyssey, Spring 1998
Father of Horus
Osiris is the mythological father of the god Horus, whose conception is described in the Osiris myth (a central myth in ancient Egyptian belief). The myth describes Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set, who wanted Osiris's throne. His wife, Isis, finds the body of Osiris and hides it in the reeds where it is found and dismembered by Set. Isis retrieves and joins the fragmented pieces of Osiris, then briefly revives him by use of magic. This spell gives her time to become pregnant by Osiris. Isis later gives birth to Horus. Since Horus was born after Osiris's resurrection, Horus became thought of as a representation of new beginnings and the vanquisher of the usurper Set.
Ptah-Seker (who resulted from the identification of the creator god Ptah with Seker) thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris. As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and was subsequently "reborn" every morning, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified as king of the underworld, god of the afterlife, life, death, and regeneration. Osiris also has the aspect and form of Seker-Osiris.
Ram god
Osiris's soul, or rather his ba, was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially in the Delta city of Mendes. This aspect of Osiris was referred to as Banebdjedet, which is grammatically feminine (also spelt "Banebded" or "Banebdjed"), literally "the ba of the lord of the djed, which roughly means The soul of the lord of the pillar. The djed, a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris.
The Nile supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetable regeneration) who died only to be resurrected, represented continuity and stability. As Banebdjed, Osiris was given epithets such as Lord of the Sky and Life of the (sun god) Ra. Ba does not mean "soul" in the western sense, and has to do with power, reputation, force of character, especially in the case of a god.
Since the ba was associated with power, and also happened to be a word for ram in Egyptian, Banebdjed was depicted as a ram, or as Ram-headed. A living, sacred ram was kept at Mendes and worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and upon death, the rams were mummified and buried in a ram-specific necropolis. Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus's father, as Banebdjed was an aspect of Osiris.
Regarding the association of Osiris with the ram, the god's traditional crook and flail are the instruments of the shepherd, which has suggested to some scholars also an origin for Osiris in herding tribes of the upper Nile.
Mythology
Plutarch recounts one version of the Osiris myth in which Set (Osiris's brother), along with the Queen of Ethiopia, conspired with 72 accomplices to plot the assassination of Osiris., or Babbit translation. Set fooled Osiris into getting into a box, which Set then shut, sealed with lead, and threw into the Nile. Osiris's wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tamarisk tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She managed to remove the coffin and retrieve her husband's body.
In one version of the myth, Isis used a spell to briefly revive Osiris so he could impregnate her. After embalming and burying Osiris, Isis conceived and gave birth to their son, Horus. Thereafter Osiris lived on as the god of the underworld. Because of his death and resurrection, Osiris was associated with the flooding and retreating of the Nile and thus with the yearly growth and death of crops along the Nile valley.
Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris was described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians to abandon cannibalism, before gathering an army and travelling the world, to teach humanity how to cultivate the vine and sow wheat and barley, figuring that this great deed would earn him immortal honours. On his trip, Osiris was accompanied by his sons Anubis and Makedon, he also took Pan along with him. While he was in Aethiopia, satyrs came to him, Osiris was fond of music, so he took with him the nine muses. In Ethiopia he taught the Ethiopians how to practice agriculture on one of his campaigns. He then travelled the world with his sister Isis, the satyrs, and the Muses before finally returning to Egypt. Osiris was then murdered by his evil brother Typhon, who was identified with Set. Typhon divided the body into twenty-six pieces, which he distributed amongst his fellow conspirators in order to implicate them in the murder. Isis and Hercules (Horus) avenged the death of Osiris and slew Typhon. Isis recovered all the parts of Osiris's body, except the phallus, and secretly buried them. She made replicas of them and distributed them to several locations, which then became centres of Osiris worship."Osiris", Man, Myth & Magic, S.G.F Brandon, Vol5 P2088, BPC Publishing."The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus", translated by George Booth 1814. retrieved 3 June 2007. Google Books
Worship