Osiris

Osiris

Osiris was both brother and husband to Isis. Osiris, the "eternally good king", was supposed to have created civilization on the Nile by introducing agriculture and vine-growing while Isis taught women the domestic arts. Their father Re (or Geb) divided the world between him and his brother Seth, who hated being given all the deserts and so plotted revenge on Osiris.

Seth invited Osiris to a banquet and challenged him to get into a chest. Seth locked the chest and threw it into the Nile where it floated downstream. Washed ashore, it was absorbed into a tamarisk tree which became very sweet-smelling. The local king had the tree cut down and made into a pillar in his palace. Isis, meanwhile, had started hunting for her husband and identified him by the smell of the tree. She rescued him and took him back to Egypt, but Seth found Osiris in the swamps and killed him again, this time cutting him into fourteen pieces and casting them all over Egypt.

Isis had to start looking again and found thirteen of the pieces. With the help of her sister Nepthys, and the gods Anubis and Thoth, she bandaged the pieces together again to make the first mummy. She brought Osiris briefly back to life, just long enough to conceive their son Horus.

By this time, Osiris had had enough and retired to the Underworld where he reigns over the righteous dead.

Osiris is represented in this picture by the djed pillar at the bottom, over which hovers a falcon with a sun disc, associated with his son Horus. The raising of the pillar is supposed to represent the victory of Osiris over Seth.

E-mail: gplonker@usa.net

Cyprus Oman Thailand Mum