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Osiris, an ancient Egyptian god
Content:
Origin of the name "Osiris"
The Appearance of Osiris
Myths about Osiris
The Resurrection of Osiris
Ideas of death and the afterlife in the cult of Osiris
Public worship of Osiris.
Stele of Ichernofret
Worship of Osiris in temples
The Court of Osiris
Osiris and Serapis
The Fall of the Cult of Osiris
if you need CONCISE information on this topic, read the article Osiris, God briefly.
On our website there are also generalizing materials The Religion of Ancient Egypt and the Gods of Ancient Egypt a list and description
Osiris (in ancient Egypt, this name was pronounced, most likely, as Usir) was an Egyptian god most often revered as the lord of the afterlife of the dead, but more closely associated with the ideas of the transition of one into another, resurrection and revival.
He was depicted as a man with green skin and a pharaoh's beard, with mummy swaddling clothes on his legs.
Osiris wore a special crown with two large ostrich feathers on each side, and in his hands he held a symbolic staff and a flail.
At one time, Osiris was considered the eldest son of the earth god Heb, although other sources claimed that his father was the sun god Ra, and his mother was the sky goddess Nut.
Osiris was the brother and husband of the goddess Isis, who after his death gave birth to his son Horus.
He bore the epithet Henty Amenti, meaning "The First of the inhabitants of the West" - an allusion to his rule in the land of the dead.
As the ruler of the dead, Osiris was sometimes called the "king of the living", because the ancient Egyptians believed that the blessed departed are "truly alive".
Osiris was considered the brother of the gods Isis, Set, and Nephthys.
The first information about Osiris dates back to the middle of the V dynasty of Ancient Egypt, although it is likely that he was worshipped much earlier: the epithet Henty Amenti dates back to at least the I dynasty, as well as the title "Pharaoh".
Most of the myths about Osiris are based on allusions contained in the Texts of the pyramids of the end of the V dynasty, on much later documentary sources of the New Kingdom, such as the Stone of Shabaka and the "Struggle of Horus and Set", and even on the later writings of Greek authors, including Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus.
Osiris was considered not only a merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also an underground force that generated all life, including vegetation and the fertile floods of the Nile.
He was called "The Lord of Love", "Eternally kind and young" and "The Lord of Silence".
The rulers of Egypt were connected with Osiris after death, resurrecting, like him, from the dead to eternal life by magic.
By the time of the New Kingdom, not only the pharaohs, but all people could establish a connection with Osiris after death, if they paid for the appropriate rituals.
Through the image of posthumous rebirth, Osiris became associated with natural cycles, in particular – with the annual renewal of vegetation and the flooding of the Nile, with the ascent of Orion and Sirius at the beginning of the new year.
Osiris was massively worshipped as the Lord of the Dead until the suppression of the old Egyptian religion after the triumph of Christianity.
The God Osiris
The author of the image
Origin of the name "Osiris"
Osiris is the Greek and Latin pronunciation of the word, which is transmitted in Egyptian hieroglyphs as "Wsjr".
Since hieroglyphic writing does not indicate all vowels, Egyptologists transliterate the true sound of this name in different ways: Asar, Yashar, Aser, Asaru, Ausar, Ausir, Usir, etc.
There are several hypotheses to explain the origin of this Egyptian word.
John Gwyn Griffiths (1980) believes that it comes from the root Wser meaning "powerful".
One of the oldest known attestations of Osiris on the mastaba of the deceased is Netjer Wser (God Almighty).
David Lorton (1985) believes that Wsjr consists of the morpheme set jret meaning "worship".
Osiris – "he who receives worship".
Wolfhart Westendorf (1987) suggests an etymology from Waset jret – "The parent of the eye".
The Appearance of Osiris
In the most developed form of iconography, Osiris is depicted in the crown of Atef, similar to the white crown of the rulers of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curly ostrich feathers on each side.
The staff is believed to represent Osiris as the god of shepherds.
The symbolism of the flail is less defined: sometimes it is also brought closer to the shepherd's whip.
Osiris is usually depicted as a pharaoh with a green (the color of rebirth) or black (a hint of the fertile silt of the Nile) face.
His body is wrapped in the shrouds of a mummy below the chest.
Less often, Osiris is depicted as a lunar god with a crown covering the moon.
The horoscopes of happy and unhappy days mention the connection of Osiris with the moon.
Osiris.
Image from the tomb of Senjem, XIX dynasty
Myths about Osiris
The Pyramid texts describe the early ideas of the afterlife as an eternal journey with the sun god among the stars.
Among these ritual texts, at the beginning of the IV dynasty, there is a formula: "The Pharaoh who gives an offering to Anubis".
By the end of the V dynasty, the formula in all the tombs changes to "The Pharaoh who gives an offering to Osiris".
Osiris is the mythological father of the god Horus, whose concept is described in the myth of Osiris, fundamental to the ancient Egyptian faith.
The myth tells that Osiris, who ruled Egypt, was killed by his brother Set, who wanted to take the throne instead of him.
The wife of Osiris, Isis, joined the severed parts of her husband's body, of which only the phallus was missing.
Isis made a golden phallus, and briefly brought her husband back to life with the help of a spell learned from her father, the god Ra.
This spell gave her time to get pregnant by Osiris before he died again.
Isis gave birth to a son, the god Horus, who was supposed to take revenge on the evil Set.
The Goddess Isis
The soul of Osiris, or rather his ba, was sometimes worshipped as a special deity, especially in the city of Mendes (Nile Delta).
This aspect of Osiris was called the feminine word Banebjedet (Banebded, Banebjed), which meant: "ba of the lord Jed", "the soul of the lord of the pillar of continuity".
Jed, a type of pillar, is usually understood as the spine of Osiris (as the Nile was considered the " spine of Egypt).
The Nile, the source of water, and Osiris, closely connected with the regeneration of vegetation, who died only to be resurrected, personified continuity and inexhaustibility.
Osiris Banebjed was given the epithets The Lord of the Sky and the Life of Ra (the sun god), since Ra was considered the ancestor of Osiris, from whom the latter inherited the royal power.
The concept of "ba "does not coincide with" soul " in the Christian sense.
It is closely related to the ideas of strength of character, will, especially in cases when it is applied to the gods.
Another meaning of the word "ba" in the ancient Egyptian language is aries, ram.
Therefore, Banebjed was depicted as a ram or a creature with a ram's head.
The living sacred ram was worshipped in Mendes as an incarnation of God.
After the death of such rams, they were mummified and buried in a special sheep necropolis.
Given this "sheep" image of Osiris, as well as the fact that a staff and a flail were assigned to this god as attributes, some scientists believe that the cult of Osiris originated among the shepherd tribes of the upper Nile.
The staff and chain were originally symbols of the minor agricultural deity Anjeti.
They moved on to Osiris later.
The rulers of Egypt borrowed them from him as symbols of divine power.
The Resurrection of Osiris
The cult of Osiris, the god of resurrection and rebirth, is especially interesting due to the concept of immortality associated with it.
Plutarch tells a version of the myth in which Set (the brother of Osiris), together with the queen of Ethiopia, conspired with 72 accomplices to arrange the murder of Osiris.
By deception, Seth induced Osiris to lie down in a box, which he then locked, sealed with lead and threw into the Nile.
Osiris ' wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found them in a tamarisk tree trunk column that supported the roof of a palace in the city of Bybla, on the Phoenician coast.
She managed to take out the coffin and open it, but Osiris was already dead.
With the help of a spell, Isis brought her husband back to life in order to get pregnant by him.
Then Osiris died again, and she hid his body in the desert.
A few months later, Isis gave birth to Horus.
While she was raising Horus, Seth was hunting – and one night he came across the body of Osiris.
In anger, he tore the body into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over the earth.
Isis collected all the body parts, with the exception of the penis, eaten by the medjed fish (catfish) and swaddled them together for proper burial.
Admired by this devotion of Isis, the gods resurrected Osiris, making him the god of the underworld.
Diodorus Siculus gives a slightly different version of the myth, where Osiris is described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts and civilization, including agriculture.
Then he traveled the world with his sister Isis, the satyrs and the nine Muses, until finally he returned to Egypt.
Osiris was killed by his evil brother Typhon, who was identified with Set.
Typhon cut the body of the murdered man into twenty six pieces, which he distributed to the accomplices of his crime.
Isis and Hercules (Horus) avenged the death of Osiris by killing Typhon.
Isis found all the body parts of Osiris, except for the phallus, and secretly buried them.
Having made their "copies", she put those in several places that turned into centers of worship of Osiris.
Ideas of death and the afterlife in the cult of Osiris
The ancient Egyptians believed that death is actually a transition to a new state.
They believed that only the ka (life force) leaves the body at the moment of death.
Their very customs of preserving the body indicate the idea that life continues after it.
Osiris is best known as the God of "Transition" and Rebirth.
Plutarch and other authors note that the sacrifices to Osiris were "gloomy, solemn and plaintive ..." ("Isis and Osiris", 69) and that the great mysteries, celebrated in two stages as a memory of the death of god, began in Abydos on the same day when the grain was planted ("Isis and Osiris", 13).
"The death of the grain and the death of God were one and the same: the grain was identified with God, who came from heaven; he was the bread by which man lives.
The resurrection of God was symbolized by the rebirth of the grain."
The annual festival provided for the production of the" Bed of Osiris " in the form of a figure of god, filled with earth and sown with seeds.
The germination of the seeds symbolized the resurrection of Osiris from the dead.
The first stage of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphant return in the form of a resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set.
All this was played out by skilled actors as a real performance, which attracted new adherents to the cult of Osiris.
According to Julius Firmicus Matern (IV century), this "play" was repeated every year by believers who "beat their chests and slashed their shoulders....
When the performance depicted how the mutilated remains of God were found and returned... lamentation turned into joy" ("De Errore Profanorum").
Public worship of Osiris.
Stele of Ichernofret
Most of the surviving information about the celebration of the Passion of Osiris can be found on the Stele of Aeroframe at Abydos, built by Chernofrom (Iherefore), possibly a priest of Osiris or an official during the reign of Pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty of Sinusita III (about 1875 BC).
The festival of Osiris at Abydos was carried out in the last month of the annual flooding of the Nile, coinciding with the onset of spring.
It was believed that it was in Abydos that the body of the god, drowned in the Nile, was washed ashore.
The kneeling supplicant of Ani before Osiris in the Kingdom of the Dead.
Behind Osiris - the goddesses Isis and Nephthys
The rituals associated with the part of the myth where it is told how Seth cut the body of Osiris into 14 parts are not mentioned on this stele.
Although, according to some papyrus texts, this episode was part of a festive ritual.
Some elements of the ceremony were held in the temple, while others were performed through a public performance of a theatrical type.
The stele of Ichernofret tells about what public ceremonies were held during the five days of the celebration:
The first day was the "March of Upuaut": the battle scenes were played out, in which victory was won over the enemies of Osiris.
Then there was a procession led by the god Upuaut ("opening the way").
The second day – "The Great Procession of Osiris": the body of Osiris was transferred from the temple to the grave.
The boat that transported him (Neshmet) had to be protected from enemies.
The third day – " Osiris is mourned and the enemies of the country are crushed."
The fourth day was the "All Night Vigil": prayers and recitations were read, funeral rites were performed.
The fifth day is the "Rebirth of Osiris": Osiris was reborn at dawn and crowned with the crown of the goddess of truth Maat.
His statue was transferred to the temple.
Worship of Osiris in temples
In the temples, the priests conducted much more esoteric rites, very different from those described by the stele of Ichernofret.
They were attended only by selected initiates.
Plutarch mentions that two days after the beginning of the festival, " the priests ... carry a sacred chest with a golden ark inside, into which they, having scooped up, pour fresh water.
And the cry of others rises that Osiris has been found.
Then the fertile earth is brought to the water and, mixing them with expensive incense and incense, a month shaped figure is sculpted.
They dress and decorate it, showing that they consider these gods to be the substance of water and earth."
("Isis and Osiris", 39).
Plutarch's story is incomplete: he himself writes: "I am silent about the rites of cutting a tree" ("Isis and Osiris", 21), deliberately avoiding depicting this most sacred ritual.
In the temple dedicated to Osiris, in Dendera, one inscription describes in detail the production of figures of all parts of the dismembered body of Osiris from wheat glue, which were sent to the cities where, according to legend, Isis found each of these parts.
In the temple of the city of Mendes, figures of Osiris made of wheat and glue were put in a trough on the day of the god's murder, water was added there for a few days, and then a "dummy" of the god was made from the resulting mixture and delivered to the temple for burial (only sacred grain grown in the temple fields could be used for this).
With the help of "molds" of each of the dismembered parts of Osiris, made of kra they baked bread, placed it in a silver chest and placed it next to the head of the god.
On the first day of the plowing festival, the statue of the goddess Isis was carried to the temple, stripped naked there, her bed was smeared with wheat glue and moistened with water, representing a fertile land.
The crown of all these sacred rituals was the eating of images of God, which played the role of communion.
The Court of Osiris
[For more information, see the separate article The Court of Osiris.]
The idea of posthumous divine justice for sins committed in life is first encountered in the era of the Ancient Kingdom, in the inscriptions of a tomb of the VI dynasty, containing fragments of a kind of "negative confession": the sinner lists not his sins, but offenses that he did not commit.
Weighing the heart of the scribe Hunefer at the afterlife judgment of the god Osiris.
"The Book of the Dead"
With the growing influence of the cult of Osiris during the Middle Kingdom ,the "democratized religion" began to promise even the poorest of its adherents the prospect of eternal life.
The main measure of personality was moral purity, not nobility.
The Egyptians believed that after death, a person appears before forty two divine judges.
If he led a life according to the prescriptions of the goddess of truth Maat, he was accepted into the Kingdom of Osiris.
If he was found guilty, he was thrown to the monster - "Devourer", and he did not participate in eternal life.
A person who was given to the Devourer was first subjected to terrible punishment, and then destroyed.
Egyptian depictions of posthumous punishment through the medium of early Christian and Coptic texts may have influenced medieval ideas about hell.
Those who were recognized as justified were cleansed on the "Fiery Island", triumphant over evil and reborn.
The damned were waiting for complete destruction and non existence.
The ancient Egyptians had no ideas about eternal torment.
The acquittal at the posthumous trial of Osiris was the main concern of the ancient Egyptians.
Osiris and Serapis
When the Greek Lagid dynasty reigned in Egypt, its rulers decided to create an artificial deity that could be worshipped by both the native inhabitants of the country and the Hellenic immigrants.
The goal was to bring both of these groups closer to each other.
Osiris was visibly identified with the sacred bull Apis.
On this basis, the syncretic cult of Serapis was created, in which Egyptian spiritual motives were combined with Greek appearance.
The Fall of the Cult of Osiris
The worship of Osiris continued until the VI century AD on the island of Philae (Upper Nile).
The decrees of Emperor Theodosius I issued in the 390s on the destruction of all pagan temples were not applied there.
The worship of Isis and Osiris was allowed on Philae until the time of Justinian I, according to the treaty of the Emperor Diocletian with the tribes of Blemmi and Nubians.
Every year these natives visited Elephantine and from time to time took the image of Isis up the river to the land of the Blemmies for prophecies.
All this was put to an end when Justinian sent the famous general Narses to destroy the sanctuaries, catch the priests and seize the divine images that were brought to Constantinople.
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Mythology /Osiris, an ancient Egyptian god
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