Legend of Osiris and Isis

The Legend of Osiris and Isis, concerning the deities of Egyptian mythology Osiris, Isis, Horus and Set, became one of the most important and powerful in Egyptian mythology during the New Kingdom. It arose originally during the Middle Kingdom as a result of syncretism of the Ogdoad and the Ennead systems. Fact|date=February 2007 The legend concerns the death of Osiris and birth of Horus.

Origin

In the Ennead, Osiris is the husband of Isis, and sibling of Set, all of whom are the great-grandchildren of the creator god Atum, and Horus is not present within the system. In the Ogdoad, Osiris is not present within the system, and Horus is son of Atum, the creator god. When the Ennead and Ogdoad merged, Ra and Amun were identified as one-another, becoming "Amun-Ra", and Horus was initially considered the fifth sibling of Osiris, Isis, Nephthys and Set. However, Horus' mother, Hathor, gradually became identified as a form of Isis, leading to Horus becoming said to be Isis' son, and therefore the son of Osiris.

As Osiris was the god of the land of the dead and before that he was the god of nature, a legend grew up seeking to explain how Osiris could father a son who was very demonstrably alive (Horus was originally the god of the sky) with his wife, who was also very much a part of the land of the living. Fact|date=February 2007

Osiris was a great pharaoh, he was loved by his people and wife but not Set, the god of the underworld. Set was jealous of his brother so he killed him and cut him into thirteen pieces and scattered them along the shores of the Nile and left the crocodiles to finish the job. However Isis searched far and wide for them and when she found twelve, she stuck the pieces together and wrapped him with linen, Osiris had become Egypt's first mummy. Then she asked Anubis to bring him back to life but Osiris couldn't come back to earth like a human again. He instead became god of the dead and Set was defeated by Horus, Osiris' son.

The coffin and the acacia

The original form of the myth states that Osiris was killed by a wooden sarcophagus secretly being made to his measurements by Set, who was jealous of Osiris's positon as king, and so plotted to kill him and take his place. A party had been held where the coffin was offered to whoever could fit inside. A few people tried to fit in, but to no avail. Osiris was encouraged to try, but as soon as he lay back, the lid slammed on him and was locked. It was then sealed with lead and thrown into the Nile. Upon hearing that Osiris was gone, Isis set out to look for him. She later learned that the coffin had floated down the Nile river up to the coast of Byblos (now in modern day Lebanon) and got embedded in the trunk of a cedar tree. She also learned that the cedar tree had been taken and used as a pillar to support a palace for the king of Byblos. After explaining the situation to the queen of Byblos and getting her permission, she managed to extract the coffin without harming the palace and took Osiris' body out into the desert and buried him back in Egypt.

Again, Set found Osiris' coffin, took his body out, and dismembered him into 13 parts, scattering them across the land of Egypt. Each part represented one of the 13 full moons (each year has 12 or 13 full moons [ Dr. Irv Bromberg, "Ratio of Lunar Months per Solar Year" University of Toronto, Canada http://individual.utoronto.ca/kalendis/solar/Atomic_Year_MSM_Ratios.pdf.] ).

Once again Isis set out to look for the pieces and she was able to find and put together 12 of the 13 parts, but was unable to find the 13th, his penis, which was eaten by the oxyrhynchus fish (a fish with an unusual curved snout resembling depictions of Set). Instead, she fashioned a phallus out of gold and sang a song around Osiris until he came back to life.

Osiris was resurrected. So it was that Isis conceived Horus. Due to this experience, Osiris became Lord of the Dead, and the Afterlife. ["Ancient Egypt", page 137 in chapter 10 by Dr. Robert K. Ritner. Oxford University Press, 1997.]

The act of evil in drowning Osiris was said to have been the work of 72 unnamed conspirators, who were led by Set. This references the legend in which 1/72nd of the moon's light was said to have been won by Thoth for the birth of the five major gods - Set, Nepthys, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Each 1/72nd of the moon's light given for the five days signifying an individual piece of darkness left in its place during the 360. Fact|date=February 2007 This legend was itself based on the fact that 1/72 over 360 days, the length of the year in the older Egyptian calendar, produces five whole days, reflecting the duration of the newer 365 day Egyptian calendar.

The moon and the oxyrhynchus

In late Egyptian thought, the righteous dead were sometimes said to become the stars, and thus the moon was occasionally seen as having a connection to Osiris, lord of the dead. ["Ancient Egypt", page 137 in chapter 10 by Dr. Robert K. Ritner. Oxford University Press, 1997.] As a death and resurrection legend, in which evil seeks to destroy a deity, thus bringing darkness, it thus developed an association with the lunar cycle, in which the moon appears to be destroyed by darkness, and is then brought back to life. Thus it later became said that Osiris had been killed by being dismembered into 13 parts, each part representing one of the 13 full moons seen each year (there are roughly 13 lunar months per year). Another interpretation is that the pieces were 14 (they number up to sixteen in some versions) were the phases of a single moon's cycle (one sliver cut off each night for 14 days, then reassembled over the next 14 days - see Janet McCrickard, "Eclipse of the Sun", 1990). The original form of Set's murder of Osiris was incorporated into this later version, though it was said that the attempt had failed when Isis and Nepthys found the coffin and rescued it.Fact|date=February 2007

Consequently, the story became that before resurrecting Osiris, Isis put together 12 of the 13 parts, but was unable to find the 13th, his penis, which was eaten by the oxyrhynchus fish (a fish with an unusual curved snout resembling depictions of Set). Instead, she sang a song around Osiris until he came back to life. She then took the form of a kite and flew around his body in order to conceive Horus. Osiris later became the god and king of the afterlife.

Development and mystery

As a life-death-rebirth deity, Horus/Osiris became a reflection of the annual cycle of crop harvesting as well as reflecting people's desires for a successful afterlife, and so the legend became extremely important, outstripping all others. The legend's ventures into both life and afterlife meant that religious rites associated with the legend eventually began to take on aspects of a mystery religion, where initiates were said to be able to partake in Horus/Osiris' resurrection, purging themselves of past ills, and entering a new life.

In Greece, the Demeter-Persephone death-resurrection cult at Eleusis, had a similar nature, and began at an extremely similar time. Many centuries later this led to interest in the Egyptian cult by the Greeks, including Plato. Eventually, a derived form of the Egyptian cult, having been infused with Platonism, spread to areas of Greek influence, particularly during the Hellenistic era of control over Egypt. As the cult referred to foreign gods, the forms of the cult in Greek nations were adopted to describe suitable local deities and merged and expanded to include elements from the local cultures. This produced a collection of closely related versions of the cult, whose central deities had been deformed to be similar to the Egyptian cult, and were by the 1st century BC collectively known as Osiris-Dionysus.Fact|date=February 2007

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