Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith. 147
the paths”to the world below. He was the inventor of the art
of embalming; he must therefore have been the god of the dead
when the Pharaonic Egyptians first settled themselves in Upper
Egypt. In one sense, indeed, he was younger than Horus, since
“the followers of Horus”had not brought the art with them from
their earlier home; but he was already god of the dead, and the
discovery of the art was accordingly ascribed to him.
The acceptance of Osiris as the god of the underworld meant
the displacement of Anubis. He had to make way for“the lord [159]
of Daddu.”The fact is a striking illustration of the influence
which the Osirian teaching must have possessed. Osiris was the
feudal god only of a nome in the north of the Delta; Anubis
had been adored from time immemorial throughout the valley of
the Nile. The cities which recognised him as their chief deity
were numerous and powerful. Nevertheless he had to yield to the
rival god and take a subordinate place beside him. He remained,
indeed, in the pantheon, for the Egyptians never broke with their
past; but the part he had played in it was taken by another, and
he was content to become merely the minister of Osiris and the
guardian of the cemeteries of the dead.
Meanwhile Osiris, like the Greek Dionysos, had pursued his
victorious march. Wherever his worship extended his temple
rose by the side of his tomb like the temples attached to the
Pyramids. Like Pta%of Memphis or the mummified Horus of
Nekhen, he was a dead god, and it was to a dead god consequently
that the offering was made and the priest dedicated. It was at
Abydos in Upper Egypt, however, that his fame was greatest.
Abydos was the sepulchral temple of Osiris attached to the city
of This, and This was not only the seat of a powerful kingdom,
which probably succeeded that of Nekhen, but the birthplace of
Menes, the founder of the united monarchy. Around the tomb
of the Osiris of Abydos, accordingly, the kings and princes of
the Thinite dynasties were buried, and where the Pharaoh was
buried his subjects wished to be buried too. From all parts of