The Master of beyondDivinity of the Egyptian Pantheon. God of deaths in the religion of ancient Egypt, Osiris is the hero of a legend which made it popular during all Antiquity.
What we know of the beginnings of the Egyptian religion, and of Osiris in particular, indicates to us that this god did not play, at the origin, a very important part in the concert of the divinities of old Egypt. It was then the incarnation of the fertilizing powers of the ground, the god of the vegetation and the plants.
Quickly, the influence of Osiris extends to many places from worship where it supplants the other gods and inherits their functions. In Busiris, it replaces old Andjety, god-king of which it takes the quality of sovereign of primitive Times. In Héliopolis, it is integrated in the group of the gods resulting from local theology and takes Isis like sister and wife. In Memphis, it is assimilated to the funerary shape of the Ptah god and is essential like god of deaths. In Abydos, it completely eclipses Khentamentiou, owner of deaths and regent of the necropoles, and becomes the first of the funerary gods. Osiris, lord of Abydos, are from now on the Master of beyond, that in front of which very late must pass in judgment. If this judgment is favorable for him, died it in its turn a “Osiris becomes”, to which it god guarantees immortality in his kingdom of eternity. Giving up reconciling the multiple aspects of Osiris, popular mythology worked out around this god a legend, tending to make of it a human character, confronted with death.
The legend osirienne
It can be summarized as follows: become king d' Egypte with the death of his/her Geb father, Osiris spread the good and taught with the men the culture and the respect of the laws and the gods. Seth, the brother of Osiris, became jealous of its glory and plotted against him. Having invited to dine, Seth locked up Osiris in a trunk which it threw to the Nile. Isis, the wife of Osiris, was put then in search of corpse of her husband, found it in the Phoenician port of Byblos and brought back it to Egypt. But Seth discovers the hiding-place and cuts out the corpse in fourteen pieces, which it disperses through the country. The search of Isis begins again: patiently, it recovers the parts of the body of Osiris and, with the assistance of her Nephtys sister, it tries to give again the life to him. This moment, it conceives Horus, the son of Osiris. Horus will avenge his/her father as a Seth combatant during a terrible fight.
Each year, one celebrated Osiris with Abydos; certain public festivals evoked an episode of the legend osirienne. Others, more secret, proceeded in the temple and associated the resurrection of Osiris with that of the vegetation, reappearing after the rising. Transmitted by Plutarque in its Isis and Osiris, the legend osirienne with known a great favor near the Greeks and of the Romans, who raised many sanctuaries with these two divinities. The iconography always represents Osiris under the same features: moulded in a white dress, arms crosseds on the chest, holding a sceptre and a whip; capped crown of High-Egypt and framed by two feathers, its head, of green color, wears a long braided beard. God of the vegetation, sovereign of the world of eternity, very human hero of a legend which charmed the hearts, Osiris is surely one of the most known gods of ancient Egypt.