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Osiris

Osiris (Egypt Usyr; Latin. Osiris) is the god of rebirth, the king of the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology and the judge of the souls of the deceased. The main centers of the cult of the god were Busiris in the Nile Delta and Abju (Abydos).

He was usually depicted as a mummy wrapped in a white cloth with green skin, with free hands holding the symbols of royal power heket and nekhehu (scepter and flail).

The crown worn by Osiris is made of papyrus stalks, his sacred boat is also made of this plant, and his jed symbol consists of several bundles of reeds inserted into one another. Further, Osiris is always depicted with one plant or another: either a lotus grows from a pond in front of his throne, or a row of trees and a vine; sometimes it is covered with bunches of grapes and the entire canopy under which Osiris sits; sometimes he himself is wrapped in vines.

According to references in ancient Egyptian texts and the story of Plutarch, Osiris was the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. He was born on the first of the five holy days that close the year. His twin sister Isis was born with him (or three days later). Their sister was Nephthys, and their brother was Seth. Osiris was the fourth of the gods who reigned on earth in the primordial times, inheriting the power of his great-grandfather Ra, grandfather Shu and father Geb.

In the early period, Isis was called the wife of Osiris, probably because she was worshipped in the neighborhood, and also because her name in the Egyptian language was consonant with the name of Osiris. This confirmed the widespread idea of heavenly twins (of different sexes).

According to the Heliopolis legend, Osiris created civilization in Egypt, taught people religion and agriculture, especially vine cultivation, putting an end to barbarism. This provoked the jealousy of his older brother Seth.

In the ancient Pyramid Texts, Seth got angry at his brother for tripping him up, and later because of adultery. The wife of Set, named Nephthys, fell in love with Osiris and, taking the form of his wife Isis, conceived a son from him, Anubis. When Isis found out about the betrayal of Osiris with Nephthys, she shook the universe with a cry of despair and tore the ribbons from the marriage bed. She turned to Thoth, who promised to give her a means to regain her husband's affection. Fearing her husband's wrath, Nephthys abandoned the infant Anubis in a reed thicket, where Isis found him with the help of dogs.

Seth decided to take revenge on his brother. According to an early version of the legend, he waylaid Osiris while hunting and killed him. Later versions report that Seth acted in league with 72 conspirators. On one of the holidays, he ordered a beautiful sarcophagus to be delivered and promised to give it to whoever it would fit. As soon as Osiris lay down in the sarcophagus, the conspirators slammed the lid shut, nailed it up and threw it into the Nile. According to the Memphis legend, the body of Osiris was thrown into the river, where he lay for three days and three nights, eaten by fish. For this reason, there was a belief among the Egyptians that a man who drowned in the Nile was sacred. The murder occurred on the 17th day of the month of Hathor (that is, November) in the 28th year of the reign or life of Osiris, when the sun was in Scorpio.

According to Plutarch (later version), after hearing about her husband's murder, Isis cut off her hair, dressed in mourning robes and went in search of Osiris. The waves carried the chest to the Syrian coast of Byblos. A tree (heather, tamarisk or cedar) sprouted in this place and wrapped itself around the box. The local ruler Melekkareth ordered to cut down a tree and make a column out of it. After coming to the Bible, Isis managed, with the permission of the ruler and his wife Astarte (that is, two Asian gods, the doppelgangers of Isis and Osiris), to remove the sarcophagus from the column. She wrapped the column itself in linen, anointed it with oils, and left it to be worshipped by the locals. This episode, unknown from Egyptian sources, explains the practice of the cult of Isis and Osiris in the Bible during the time of Plutarch and, presumably, in the early New Kingdom.

Isis returned to Egypt with her husband's body and, with the help of Nephthys, hid in the marshes near the city of Buto to mourn Osiris. The transformation of the goddesses into falcons and vultures during the search and mourning may be explained by the habits of birds: the vulture makes a cry similar to crying and flies long distances in search of carrion. In the New Kingdom, when the death of Osiris is associated with the annual flooding of the Nile, the waters of the river were considered the tears of Isis or the bodily juices of Osiris. During the same period, an addition appeared that Seth found and chopped up his brother's body (in different versions from 14 to 42 parts, according to the number of nomes or provinces of Egypt), and then scattered it across Egypt (or only across the Delta). The dispersal of the members of the god went back to the belief that the stars were fragments of a dead sun.

With the help of Anubis or Thoth, Isis collected the body parts of her husband (according to another version, she buried him where she found him, which explains the belief of the ancient Egyptians in finding his parts in various sacred temples and Serapies), and Anubis embalmed him. That's how the first mummy appeared.

According to one version, Horus was born or conceived before the death of his father, according to another, Isis became pregnant from the fruit of the tree of destiny (usually a vine). The prevailing theory was that Isis became pregnant miraculously from a briefly resurrected Osiris. According to Plutarch (later version), Isis did not find the penis (it was eaten by fish) Osiris therefore fashioned a phallus out of clay, consecrated it and attached it to the assembled body of her husband. Transformed into a female hawk, the bird of Khat, Isis spread her wings over the mummy of Osiris, uttered magical words and became pregnant. From this action, the weak second son Harpocrates was born (unknowingly, Plutarch singled out the form of Horus as a separate deity). In Egyptian sources, the phallus of Osiris was found by Isis with other parts of the body.

Isis escaped from captivity in the swamps of Lower Egypt and hid in the form of a cow from Seth's pursuers on the floating island of Hemmis (Egypt. Akh-bity "papyrus thickets of the Pharaoh of Lower Egypt"), where the Mountain gave birth. According to the Greeks, this place lies not far from Buto, although for the Egyptians its location was not considered important and was understood as a kind of sacred retreat. To protect her son from the wrath of Set, Isis placed the baby in a basket or chest and floated on the waters of the Nile. The divine nanny Renenutet took care of him until he revealed himself to the world by "putting on his belt in a dense thicket" (that is, he matured). Prompted by the spirit of Osiris, Horus decided to become "the avenger of his father." After defeating Set, Horus resurrects his father, allowing him to swallow his eye, but he does not want to stay on earth and becomes the lord of the dead in the Duat. Horus occupies the earthly throne.

The Judgment of Osiris.
Initially (according to the Pyramid Texts), Anubis was the sole judge of the dead in the Duat, but since the end of the Ancient Kingdom (the end of the 3rd millennium BC), this high position has been usurped by Osiris (who was considered the deceased pharaoh), who assumed the titles of Anubis "lord of the West" (Khentiamenti), "lord of those who are on the in the west."

At the beginning of the reign of the XVIII dynasty, the scene of the Judgment of Osiris appeared on the papyri of the "Book of the Dead", the "great scales" are depicted for the first time. According to beliefs, the deceased's heart was placed on one side of the scale, and the feather of the goddess of truth, Maat, was placed on the other side to check how well the deceased lived. If the great Ennead pronounced a guilty verdict, then the monster Ammat devoured the heart of the deceased, which deprived the sinner of the opportunity to continue life in the fields of Ialu.

Practically nothing is known about the first stages of the cult of Osiris in the pre-Dynastic period. Originally, Osiris was the local god of the city of Jedu (Jedet) in the Delta, which the Greeks called Busiris ("House of Osiris"). Here, the symbol of Osiris was the pillar of Jed. Wooden cases in the form of the mummy of Osiris were also used for ritual purposes: they were hollow inside, earth was poured in and grain was thrown in, and holes were drilled in the lid of the case, through which green shoots sprouted ("Sprouting Osiris"). 360 or 365 trees were planted around his temples as a symbol of the changing time and year.

Worship from Busiris spread throughout Egypt, but the main center of worship soon became Abydos in Middle Egypt. Many Egyptians sought immortality through burial in Abydos, where, according to beliefs, the body of god rested. In parallel with the solarization of Osiris, his wife Isis began to be personified with the heavenly cow Hathor, which is why a crown in the form of horns began to be depicted on her head.

The myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris was associated with the annual agricultural cycle. The funeral of Osiris symbolized the sowing of grain, his resurrection — the appearance of seedlings, the murder of Osiris — the cutting of ears during harvest. Osiris was represented as a life-giving force, a righteous ruler following the principles of maat (justice), while Seth, who opposed him, was the personification of chaos and cruelty. In this regard, the myth of Osiris and Seth symbolizes the struggle between order and disorder, life and death.

With the development of the cult, the story of the death of Osiris, the grief of his widow Isis, and the struggle of Horus became the themes of numerous religious dramas at great folk festivals. Since Osiris was the lord of the year, his festivals were mostly lunar, which is why he was later called the "self-renewing moon."

The cult of Osiris destroyed the Pharaoh's monopoly on heaven, established the custom of burying the dead without dismemberment, and promised each person a new life after death. By the end of the Middle Kingdom, the cult of Osiris had established itself in Upper Egypt and became very popular.

The mythological story of Osiris and Set can be traced in the plot of the ancient Egyptian literary work "The Tale of Two Brothers" (c. 1200-1194 BC) and the fairy tale "Truth and Crookedness" (c. 1292-1191 BC).

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