Osiris (also known as Usir) was an Ancient Egyptian God of the afterlife, death, life, the dead, transition, resurrection, regeneration, fertility and the underworld. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. Osiris was at times considered the oldest son of the earth god Geb, though other sources state his father is the sun-god Ra, and the sky goddess Nut, as well as being brother and husband of Isis, with Horus being considered his posthumously begotten son. He was also associated with the epithet Khenti-Amentiu, meaning "Foremost of the Westerners", a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead. As ruler of the dead, Osiris was also sometimes called "king of the living": ancient Egyptians considered the blessed dead "the living ones".
Osiris was considered the brother of Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Heru-ur, and father of Hor. Osiris is first attested in the middle of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt, although it is likely that he was worshipped much earlier; the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the first dynasty, also as a pharaonic title. Most information available on the myths of Osiris is derived from allusions contained in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and the Contending of Horus and Seth, and much later, in narrative style from the 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 the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. He was described as the "Lord of Love", "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful" and the "Lord of Silence". The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, if they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals.
Through the hope of new life after death, Osiris began to be associated with the cycles observed in nature, in particular vegetation and the annual flooding of the Nile, through his links with the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year. Osiris was widely worshiped as Lord of the Dead until the suppression of the Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Greco-Roman sources
| “ | Now, her [Telethusa] pregnant belly could scarcely bear to carry her fully-grown burden, when Io, the daughter of Inachus, at midnight, in sleep’s imagining, stood, or seemed to stand, by her bed: Isis, accompanied by her holy procession. The moon’s crescent horns were on her forehead, and the shining gold of yellow ears of corn, and royal splendour belonged to her. With her were the jackal-headed Anubis, the hallowed cat-headed Bast, the dappled bull Apis, and Harpocrates, the god who holds his tongue, and urges silence, thumb in mouth. The sacred rattle, the sistrum, was there; and Osiris, for whom her search never ends; and the strange serpent she fashioned, swollen with sleep-inducing venom, that poisoned the sun-god Ra. | ” |
–Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 9 | ||
| “ | I have heard a similar story from a man of Phoenicia, that the Egyptians hold the feast for Isis at a time when they say she is mourning for Osiris. At this time the Nile begins to rise, and it is a saying among many of the natives that what makes the river rise and water their fields is the tears of Isis. | ” |
–Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 10 | ||
| “ | ...whether 'tis right to call thee [Apollo] rosy Titan, in the fashion of the Achaemenian race, or Osiris bringer of the harvest, or Mithras, that beneath the rocky Persean cave strains at the reluctant-following horns | ” |
–Statius, Thebaid | ||
Gallery
| Preceded by: Geb |
Pharaoh of Egypt Mythic |
Succeeded by Set |
See also
- Ezra; Some Jews identified Ezra with Osiris.
References
| Gods and goddesses of Egyptian mythology | |
|---|---|
| Gods | Ahy • Amun • Anedjti • Anhur • Anubis • Ash • Aten • Atum • Banebdjedet • Duamutef • Geb • Hapi • Hapi • Heka • Herishef • Horakhty • Horus • Imseti • Khepri • Khnum • Khonsu • Maahes • Medjed • Montu • Nefertem • Nehebkau • Nemty • Nun • Osiris • Ptah • Qebehsenuef • Ra • Rem • Usirhepi • Set • Shu • Sobek • Sokar • Thoth • Wepawet |
| Goddesses | Amentet • Anat • Ankhet • Bastet • Buto • Ernutet • Hathor • Hatmehit • Isis • Ma'at • Menhit • Meretseger • Meskhenet • Mut • Neith • Nekhbet • Nephthys • Nut • Satet • Sekhmet • Serket • Seshat • Sopdet • Tawaret • Tefnut • Wosret |
| Graeco-Egyptian deities | Agathodaemon • Ammon • Osiris • Io-Isis • Serapis • Harpocrates • Hermanubis • Hermes Trismegistus • Nilus • Dionysus-Osiris |