Since Sarapis is himself a royal god, some think this image of Osiris and what he was expected to do for the deceased was influenced by his association with the Greek divinity. As noted by scholars like Laurent Coulon and Didier Devauchelle, the concept of Osiris as a royal god became increasingly prominent during the first millennium BC, even before the Ptolemaic Period, and there was a growing tendency at this time to portray him not just as the ruler of the underworld but the ruler of this one as well.
Connected with this was an increased tendency to see in Osiris as much a god of the living as of the dead. Thus, it was not so much that in the Ptolemaic Period Osiris was identified with Sarapis and acquired new powers and attributes as a result. It was rather that the new image of Osiris which arose in the first millennium BC, itself building upon earlier ideas, and the powers and roles that were attributed to him as a consequence, facilitated and led to his identification with Sarapis.
To be sure, in fostering the association between Osiris and Sarapis as symbols of kingship, the Ptolemies were exploiting this for political purposes, but as Coulon has pointed out, many earlier rulers of the first millennium did the same. The first was the need to look at all the evidence pertaining to a particular phenomenon. When we fail to do so, we may overlook precedents for what otherwise appears to be an innovation.
Far from being an invention of the Ptolemaic Period, it can be traced back as far as the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. The second point was that political change does not invariably bring about change in other spheres.
As we saw, the imposition of Ptolemaic rule over Egypt does not seem to have resulted in fundamental changes in Egyptian conceptions of the afterlife. The third point was that we should not think of the Graeco-Roman Period as a cultural unity. There were significant differences between its two halves, not least in the sphere of religion.
Thus it was only in the Roman Period that the popularity of Sarapis reached its peak, even though the cult of the god had been established centuries earlier when the Ptolemies first took control of Egypt. This serves nicely to illustrate the fourth and final point, which is that the ability of the state to influence developments in the religious sphere was limited.
Personal names derived from or incorporating that of Sarapis enjoyed their greatest vogue in the second century AD, to judge from the onomastic record. Fewer people bearing such names are attested from the third century BC than they are from the seventh century AD, when Christianity was the dominant religion in Egypt.
From this we may conclude that introducing the cult of Sarapis was one thing ; persuading the populace to venerate him was quite another. The lecture began with some general remarks on method and approach. It was argued that the end of belief in the Osirian afterlife should be investigated in the context of the end of traditional Egyptian religion as a whole, but we should remember that the two are not identical.
Not all features of Egyptian religion came to an end at the same time. Some survived longer than others. Equally, we should be prepared to separate belief in the Osirian afterlife from belief in Osiris himself. It is possible that the latter could have persisted after the former had died out. In one, the conflict and triumph model, temples and other venues for traditional cultic activity continued in operation until destroyed or turned into churches.
In the other, the gradual end model, temples fell out of use over a period of time ; some may have been abandoned and stood empty for a while before Christianity became dominant. Re-use or destruction was not necessarily motivated by religious feelings.
Some temples were converted for secular purposes or exploited as sources of building material. Proponents of the first model rely heavily upon literary sources, most of them later than the period they purport to describe, as evidence to support their view. Proponents of the second model give more weight to contemporary documentary and archaeological evidence. Thus, in assessing which model is superior, one first needs to establish which type of evidence is more reliable.
This was done partly for practical reasons, since there was insufficient time to investigate the phenomenon in every part of Egypt. But it was also done to emphasise the importance of looking closely at local and regional developments. We should not assume that belief in the Osirian afterlife disappeared at the same time in every part of Egypt. It may have survived longer in some places than in others. Each city or town had its own distinctive local pattern of religious development that could have had a bearing upon this.
The three places selected for investigation in the lecture are all sites from which abundant evidence pertaining to the cult of Osiris has been recovered, and this evidence has been the subject of considerable discussion. Thus they are well-suited for use as case studies. It is impossible to determine with certainty when belief in the Osirian afterlife actually came to an end in a particular place.
The most that we can do is to establish when the evidence for it comes to an end. It remains possible that the belief itself persisted even longer, but we cannot track it in the historical record. Furthermore, evidence for belief in the Osirian afterlife is just that. It tells us that the belief in question existed in a particular place at a particular time, but it does not tell us how widespread that belief was or what portion of the population in a given area held it.
The most important local cults were identified and described. Their history was briefly traced. Particular attention was given to the evidence for religious life and the forms it took in the Graeco-Roman Period.
Osiris was a very important deity at this time. Numerous texts attest to belief in him and the benefits that the deceased hoped to enjoy in the afterlife as members of his following. Such texts are still abundant in the second and third centuries AD, but not thereafter.
This records the wish that the woman for whom it was written live before Osiris. Thus evidence for belief in the Osirian afterlife at Akhmim ceases after the third quarter of the third century AD. Greek documentary texts of the fourth century AD mention temples, priests, and priestesses at Akhmim, but most of these served Greek cults rather than Egyptian.
The writings of the archimandrite Shenute c. But there is no trace in his accounts of the very distinctive features of Egyptian cult and worship that characterised this area in earlier periods. In fact, there is very little in his descriptions that could be called Egyptian at all. When he cites the myths of his opponents, they are invariably Greek ones.
The deities to whom he refers are always given Greek names, the Egyptian equivalents being added as glosses if at all. Whatever the case, there is no evidence that Shenute knew anything of Osiris or his cult, which supports the idea that belief in that god had already ceased in the Akhmim region by the time his career began. The religious history of the island was summarised and the most important cults described. As with Akhmim, particular attention was devoted to local forms of cultic activity during the Graeco-Roman Period.
Since Isis was the main deity worshipped at Philae, it is not surprising that Osiris, as her brother and husband, played an important part in religious life there as well. The most notable features of his cult were described. Important information about this is provided by hymns and other texts inscribed on the walls of the temples on the island, including graffiti left by priests who were employed there and pilgrims and other visitors to the site.
The picture they present is one of gradual contraction. The latest precisely dated graffito from Philae that mentions Osiris is a Greek one written on 20 December In it the writer and his brother give thanks to their mistress Isis and their master Osiris.
Many of the writers of the latest graffiti from the island were members of the same family, in whom responsibility for maintaining the cult was invested, and one wonders how far outside their circle worship of deities like Isis and Osiris extended.
Some think that they functioned mainly as priests for tribes living to the south of the Egyptian border, who retained the old faith longer than the Egyptians themselves did. Literary sources, all of them composed long after this time, present a different picture.
The Coptic Life of Aaron dates the triumph of Christianity on the island to the fourth century AD, which is patently untrue. An account written by the Byzantine historian Procopius claims that the temples of Philae continued to function until sometime between and AD, at which time they were destroyed by order of the emperor Justinian. This account is equally untrustworthy, since the temples on the island remain standing to this day. Finally, a petition written by Dioscorus of Aphrodite in AD accuses someone of committing a long series of crimes.
These include consecrating pagan shrines and statues, and encouraging Nubian tribes who had converted to Christianity to apostasise. Most of these accusations are probably rhetorical. Beginning at about B.
The origin of Osiris's name is a mystery, which forms an obstacle to knowing the pronunciation of its hieroglyphic form. The majority of current thinking is that the Egyptian name is pronounced aser where the a is the letter ayin i.
Origin of name The name was first recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs only as ws-ir or os-ir because the Egyptian writing system omitted vowels. It is reconstructed to have been pronounced Us-iri oos-ee-ree meaning 'Throne of the Eye' and survives into the Coptic language as Ousire. Early mythology Father of Anubis Earlier, when the Ennead and Ogdoad cosmogenies became merged, with the identification of Ra as Atum Atum-Ra , gradually Anubis, the god of the underworld in the Ogdoad system, was replaced by Osiris, whose cult had become more significant.
In order to explain this, Anubis was said to have given way to Osiris out of respect, and, as an underworld deity, was subsequently identified as being Osiris' son.
Abydos, which had been a strong centre of the cult of Anubis, became a centre of the cult of Osiris. However, as Isis , Osiris' wife, represented life, in the Ennead, it was considered somewhat inappropriate for her to be the mother of a god associated with death, and so instead, it was usually said that Nephthys, the other of the two female children of Geb and Nut, was his mother.
To explain the apparent infidelity of Osiris, it was said that a sexually frustrated Nephthys had disguised herself as Isis to get more attention from her husband, Set, but did not succeed, although Osiris then mistook her for Isis, and they procreated, resulting in Anubis' birth.
Father of Horus Later, when Hathor's identity from the Ogdoad was assimilated into that of Isis, Horus, who had been Isis' husband in the Ogdoad , became considered her son, and thus, since Osiris was Isis' husband in the Ennead , Osiris also became considered Horus' father.
Attempts to explain how Osiris, a god of the dead, could give rise to someone so definitely alive as Horus, lead to the development of the Legend of Osiris and Isis, which became the greatest myth in Egyptian mythology.
The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Seth who wanted Osiris' throne. Osiris was subsequently resurrected by Anubis. Osiris and Isis gave birth to Horus.
As such, since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as representing new beginnings. This combination, Osiris-Horus , was therefore a life-death-rebirth deity, and thus associated with the new harvest each year. Ptah-Seker who resulted from the identification of Ptah as Seker , who was god of re-incarnation, thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris rarely known as Ptah-Seker-Atum , although this was just the name, and involved Osiris rather than Atum.
As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and subsequently be re-incarnated , as both king of the underworld, and god of reincarnation, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified as the sun during the night. This aspect of Osiris was referred to as Banebdjed also spelt Banebded or Banebdjedet , which is technically feminine which literally means The ba of the lord of the djed , which roughly means The soul of the lord of the pillar of stability.
The djed, a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris, since the Egyptians had associated death, and the dead, as symbolic of stability. As Banebdjed, Osiris was given epithets such as Lord of the Sky and Life of the sun god Ra , since Ra, when he had become identified with Atum, was considered Osiris' ancestor, from whom his regal authority was inherited.
Ba does not, however, quite mean soul in the western sense, and also has a lot 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 even 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. Later, when Horus became identified as the child of Osiris in this form Horus is known as Harpocrates in greek and Har-pa-khered in Egyptian , Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus' father, as Banebdjed is an aspect of Osiris.
In occult writings , Banebdjed is often called the goat of Mendes , and identified with Baphomet; the fact that Banebdjed was a ram sheep , not a goat, is apparently overlooked. They, in turn, gave birth to Geb, the earth, and his sister, Nut, the sky. Osiris married his sister, Isis, and his younger brother, Set, their sister, Nephthys. Osiris and Isis were the parents of Horus. In one version of the myth, Isis and Osiris fell Skip to main content Skip to table of contents.
This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion Edition. Editors: David A. Another way Isis was described was as a winged goddess or a kite one of her sacred animals.
In this form her wigs would spread a good scent across the land and brought fresh air into the underworld. The Ennead of Heliopolis is nine Ancient Egyptian gods associated with creation myths. Osiris is the son of Geb and Nut. His siblings are Set, Horus, Nepthys, and Isis. He is one of the most important gods of Heliopolis Ennead. Alothough Atum was the head of the Heliopolis Ennead, Osiris was considered to be the king of the underworld.
The oldest religious texts known to us refer to him as the great god of the dead. After murdered by Set he became king of the underworld. In order to enter his kingdom the dead had to have their heart balanced agaisnt the feather Ma'at justice or balance.
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