Osirian
Osiris
wsjrHow it changed
Began as a royal funerary god: in the Pyramid Texts only the king becomes Osiris. Over the Middle Kingdom the identification spreads to officials and eventually to anyone who could afford the rites, which is one of the most consequential democratisations in the history of religion.
Cult centre
Abydos
Best attested
Fifth Dynasty onward, dominant from the Middle Kingdom
Family
Son of Geb and Nut; husband of Isis; father of Horus.
Epithets
- “Foremost of the Westerners”
- “Lord of silence”
How to recognise the figure
A mummified man with green or black skin, holding crook and flail, wearing the atef crown.
Appears in
Alluded to from c. 2400 BCE; told as a connected narrative only c. 100 CE
The murder of Osiris
The one Egyptian myth everyone can name, and the one where the famous version is Greek.
c. 1500 BCE onward, in royal tombs
The twelve hours of the night
The sun does not set. It dies, travels through the underworld, unites with Osiris at midnight, and is reborn.
c. 1550 BCE onward, Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead
The weighing of the heart
A heart on one pan, a feather on the other, and forty-two judges who each have to be addressed by name.
Carries
Worshipped at
Others in this group