Mythology Book

279

Isis and Nephthys are depicted

lamenting over the murdered Osiris.

The scene decorates a gilt coffin from

the Roman period of ancient Egypt,

ca. 1st century bce.

When the queen of Byblos saw her

baby on fire, she screamed in terror

and broke the magic, preventing

the child from becoming immortal.

Isis now revealed her true self and

pleaded with the queen for the

pillar with the chest inside to be

taken down. Isis then removed the

wood that had grown around the

chest containing the body of her

beloved Osiris. Throwing herself

upon his coffin, she uttered such

terrible cries that the queen’s

youngest son died of the shock.

Seth finds the body

Isis put the coffin on a boat and

sailed away across the sea back to

Egypt. When she landed and came

to a quiet spot, she opened up the

coffin and laid her face on the face

of Osiris, weeping. The goddess

then concealed the coffin, with

the corpse inside it, in a thicket

of papyrus reeds. Seth was out

hunting that night and found the

coffin. Wrenching it open, he cut

Osiris’s body into 14 pieces, which

he scattered across Egypt.

Isis and her sister Nepthys,

however, gathered up the parts of

Osiris’s body. Wherever they found

a piece, Isis magically made a

See also: The creation and the first gods 266–71 ■ The night barque of Ra 272–73 ■ Ra’s secret name 274–75

ANCIENT EGYPT AND AFRICA

Abydos

The cult center of Osiris was at

Abydos, in Upper Egypt, about

6 miles (10 km) from the Nile River.

Here, for more than 2,000 years,

the mysteries of the god were

celebrated annually in the last

month of the flooding, as the

waters receded. Although little

is known about the rituals of the

temple, their objective was to

ensure eternal life for the souls

of the dead when they entered

the Underworld, where Osiris

reigned. In a public ceremony,

priests would also carry an image

of the god from the temple to a

tomb believed to be the god’s,

attended by a great procession

of Osiris’s worshippers.

At the same time, a public

festival would reenact the story

of Osiris’s murder, the grief of

Isis and Nepthys, the trial of

Seth, and the battle between

the supporters of Seth and

Osiris. At the end of the drama,

the actor playing Osiris would

reappear in triumph in the

sacred barque, and the djed-

pillar, a stylized sheaf of corn

which symbolized his rebirth,

would be erected.

Colorful stone reliefs dating from

the 12th-century bce adorn the walls

of the impressive temple to Osiris at

Abydos, Egypt.

wax model of it and left the model

in the care of local priests, thereby

establishing shrines to Osiris

across the whole of Egypt.

When the sisters had gathered

together the god’s dismembered

body, they sat beside it and wept.

Ra, the sun god, took pity on them,

and sent the jackal god, Anubis, ❯❯

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