Osiris
Excerpt from “Gods of Ancient Egypt” / Egyptian Museum of Turin city.
I hope that these synthesis elements can be helpful to you to find inspiration in deepening and research within the context of ancient Egypt, which, despite many apparent differences, contains many elements related to the birth of the so-called western culture.
Disclaim: ! text below has been extracted from “Gods of ancient Egypt” a brochure sold and edited by the Egyptian Museum of the Metropolitan City of Turin. Text has been translated and conceptually adapted by the author with no purpose other than cultural disclosure. No religious dynamics are conveyed in this article, but the anthropological study and deepening of the ancient Egyptian civilization.
Osiris is one of the most important deities of ancient Egypt. Its iconography is very rich of symbolic elements, which clarify the funerary characteristics of this god.
He is usually depicted in human form, dressed in a close-fitting white sheath that gives him the appearance of a mummy, the one assumed after Isis reassembles the pieces of his body to revive him.
Color of his skin, generally black like the silt of the Nile or green like papyrus plants, is related to his role as god of vegetation and rebirth.
This aspect is linked to the salient moment of the Osirian festival celebrated between the 12th and 30th of the month of Khoiak (December 8–26), which saw the placement in a sacred garden of the “Osiris Vegetante”, wooden boxes in the shape of Osiris , containing land sprouted from plants, another symbol of fertility and rebirth.
Osiris, after being ruler of the world of the living, became ruler of the underworld, Lord of the West and “First of the Westerners” but one of the roles that most characterized him was that of judge.
Chapter 125 of the “Book of the Dead”, in fact, describes how the deceased, in order to pass the Judgment of Osiris and be able to enter the afterlife, was subjected to the so-called “weighing of the heart”.
According to Egyptian belief, the tomb resided in Abydos of the god, identified with the funerary monument of Djer, one of the kings of the First Dynasty.
During the New Kingdom, pharaoh Sethi I, father of Ramesses II, had a cenotaph of the god built next to his funerary temple, a symbolic tomb, which beautifully transposes the primordial hill of creation into architecture.
Often, the characteristics of Osiris merged into other divinities through the widespread process of syncresis, which favored the creation of divinities such as: Osiris-Apis-Atum-Horus, Osiris-Ra, Osiris-Sep; Sokar-Osiris, Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, Osirapis, Serapis, Osiris-Orion and more.
Credits: contents “Gods of ancient Egypt” , Egyptian Museum of Turin. — Translations by Alberto Ballocca.
