When was osiris born

Harris , recto 7, [20]. The episode of the involuntary adultery would probably have given rise to tragedy in the Athens of Pericles, and the Viennese psychoanalyst would probably have conceived some "Osirian complex". In Egyptian culture, it is used primarily as mythical reference intended to reinforce the capacity of a magic formula.

All the affair rests on an inauspicious confusion, as Plutarch points out: Osiris mistakes Nephthys for Isis, a tragic-comedy mistake resulting from their twin birth. But it is necessary to leave the theatre of conjugal events to arrive at what constitutes the real Osirian drama. About the return of Osiris, Plutarch told us, Typhon Seth "plotted against him, after having insured the complicity of seventy-two conspirators, assisted also by the presence of a queen of Ethiopia named Aso.

In secret, he took the measurements of the body of Osiris and manufactured according to these measurements a beautiful chest magnificently worked. He brought into the banqueting room, and the guests, who saw it, were seized with pleasure and admiration. Then Typhon, by way of a game, promised to make gift of it to whoever, stretching himself in it, would find it to his size. All tried in turn, but no one was suited. Finally, Osiris stretched himself in it. Then all the accomplices of Typhon hurried and folded back the lid, which they fixed on the outside with nails and sealed it with molten lead.

Then they transported the chest down to the river and it descend toward the sea by the Tanitic tributary, which for this reason the Egyptians today still call the abhorrent , the cursed " Isis and Osiris , 13 [21].

To this day, no explanation has been proposed for the number of the seventy-two conspirators. As for the enigmatic Aso, assistant of Seth, personification of winds which blow in Ethiopia, according to Plutarch, her name can evoke that of Isis, well known for her sorceress's expertise, and for which the Meroitic transcription - "Achi" or "Ochi" - would explain the anthroponyme of Plutarch.

One also thinks of the "Nubian from the plateau", in a magic papyrus of the Middle Kingdom, susceptible to harming the newborn child P. Berlin ,2, 8. But, to come from there in the heart of the narrative, it is necessary to recognise that the theme of the plot carried out against the king encounters many echoes in Egyptian history. One would not be surprised, in these conditions, that the official mythographies elaborated this Sethian episode to explain some accidents of history and, especially, to legitimise in advance a repression of scale and relentless punishment.

The recent record of an established regicide, like the one of Amenemhat I at the beginning of the XIIth Dynasty, of which one knows that it was exploited politically by his son and successor Sesostris I, may have played an important part in the conception of this mythical episode? Koemoth was the first to see, in the historicisation of the Osirian myth, the likely effect of royal propaganda [22].

His commentary of the Tentyrite text relative to Osiris "Lord of Egypt, who governed the inhabitants of the desert, who governed the foreign regions as Horus The one who put stop the massacre in the Two-lands" carefully suggests that this historicisation could have intervened very well during the reign of Sesostris I, "in order to magnify the picture of the latter in the eyes of his subjects. Sesostris would have appeared to them then as the image of a celebrated mythical king having worked for the glory of Egypt, at the dawn of time".

In fact, several indications, in this investigation on the theme of the terrestrial reign of Osiris, drive us to the XIIth Dynasty and, more precisely, to Sesostris I. A Theban birth, in the dynastic capital of Amenemhat and Sesostris, a titulature that seems have been composed, in part at least, at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, an Osiris using the persuasive speech in governmental fashion, in the image of what the sovereigns of this time claimed, a tragic end, which could evoke the assassination Amenemhat I.

Which would clarify this passage where Manethon indicates that the Egyptians placed Sesostris, for his exploits, immediately after Osiris.

One will add that the Egyptian language suggested an obvious word game between the proper name "Sesostris" s-en-usire and the expression "the second of Osiris" sen-usir. Definitely, Sesostris I, whose legendary figure progressively nourished the military exploits of Sesostris III, was not the first, nor especially the last to find advantage to the broadcasting of this "biography" of Osiris: the historic experience of the New Kingdom, illustrated notably by the conquests of Thutmosis III and the privileged role of some royal wives, must certainly enrich, as one sees it, the mythical narration.

The Ethiopian kings of the XXVth Dynasty, who resumed for their own benefit the Pharaonic ideology, then the sovereigns of the Saite renaissance also contributed, in all probability, to the re-activation of the myth. One can wonder if Alexander the Great's character didn't appear to some Hellenised Egyptians or Egyptionised Greeks as the Messianic reincarnation of the prototype Osirian king, conquering and civilising.

Notes: [1] All excerpts of Plutarch are mentioned here in the translation of Chr. Froidefond, Plutarch. II, ; other references in S. Cauville, Dendara. Les chapelles osiriennes. Waddell, Manetho , Loeb Classical Library, p. Index , BdE ,, p. The translation of this passage by S.

Bertrac, Y. Wild ducks fly over a papyrus thicket in the Nile marshlands. This painting comes from Amarna, the city built by the pharaoh Akhenaten.

Isis tried to hide her pregnancy from Seth. Thoth , the god of wisdom, advised her to flee because Seth would try to kill her child. She went to the marshes, where she gave birth to her son, Horus. Isis hid the child in the marshes, where she cured him from scorpion, snake and crocodile bites. One day, she left her son to search for food, and upon her return, she found him half dead.

Seth had entered the marsh, transformed himself into a poisonous snake and bit the child. Isis called for help from the high gods. Her pleas were heard by the gods in the Bark of Millions of Years the solar bark. Thoth descended to talk to her. He told her that the powers of Re would set things right and that good would triumph over evil. Then the solar bark stopped and the earth fell into darkness.

Thoth assured Isis that the earth would remain in darkness, that wells would dry up and that crops would fail until Horus was cured. Then, in the name of the sun, he exorcised the poison from Horus's body and cured the child. The sun god travels through the darkness of night in his solar bark. Drawing: Nancy Ruddell. But presently she became fond of the child, and thought to make him immortal, which she did by burning away his mortal parts while she flew round and round him in the form of a swallow.

Astarte, however, had been watching her secretly; and when she saw that her baby seemed to be on fire she rushed into the room with a loud cry, and so broke the magic. Then Isis took on her own form, and Astarte crouched down in terror when she saw the shining goddess and learned who she was. Malcander and Astarte offered her gifts of all the richest treasures in Byblos, but Isis asked only for the great tamarisk pillar which held up the roof, and for what it contained.

When it was given to her, she caused it to open and took out the chest of Set. But the pillar she gave back to Malcander and Astarte; and it remained the most sacred object in Byblos, since it had once held the body of a god. When the chest which had become the coffin of Osiris was given to her, Isis flung herself down on it with so terrible a cry of sorrow that little Dictys died at the very sound.

But Isis at length caused the chest to be placed on a ship which King Malcander provided for her, and set out for Skondia. With her went Maneros, the young prince of Byblos: but he did not remain with her for long, since his curiosity proved his undoing. For as soon as the ship had left the land Isis retired to where the chest of Set lay, and opened the lid.

Maneros crept up behind her and peeped over her shoulder: but Isis knew he was there and, turning, gave him one glance of anger - and he fell backwards over the side of the ship into the sea. Next morning, as the ship was passing the Phaedrus River, its strong current threatened to carry them out of sight of land. But Isis grew angry and placed a curse on the river, so that its stream dried up from that day.

She came safely to Skondia after this, and hid the chest in the marshes of the delta while she hastened to the floating island where Buto was guarding Horus. But it chanced that Set came hunting wild boars with his dogs, hunting by night after his custom, since he loved the darkness in which evil things abound. By the light of the moon he saw the chest of cedar wood inlaid with ebony and ivory, with gold and silver, and recognized it.

At the sight hatred and anger came upon him in a red cloud, and he raged like a panther of the south. He tore open the chest, took the body of Osiris, and rent it into fourteen pieces which, by his divine strength, he scattered up and down the whole length of the Ducoal so that the crocodiles might eat them.

Now Isis had to begin her search once more. This time she had helpers, for Nephthys left her wicked husband Set and came to join her sister. And Anubis, the son of Set and Nephthys, taking the form of a jackal, assisted in the search. When Isis traveled over the land she was accompanied and guarded by seven scorpions. But when she searched on the Ducoal and among the many streams of the delta she made her way in a boat made of papyrus: and the crocodiles, in their reverence for the goddess, touched neither the rent pieces of Osiris nor Isis herself.

Indeed ever afterwards anyone who sailed the Ducoal in a boat made of papyrus was safe from them, for they thought that it was Isis still questing after the pieces of her husband's body.

Slowly, piece by piece, Isis recovered the fragments of Osiris. And wherever she did so, she formed by magic the likeness of his whole body and caused the priests to build a shrine and perform his funeral rites.

And so there were thirteen places in Skondia which claimed to be the burial place of Osiris. In this way also she made it harder for Set to meddle further with the body of the dead god.

One piece only she did not recover, for it had been eaten by certain impious fishes; and their kind were accursed ever afterwards, and no Skondian would touch or eat them.

Isis, however, did not bury any of the pieces in the places where the tombs and shrines of Osiris stood. She gathered the pieces together, rejoined them by magic, and by magic made a likeness of the missing member so that Osiris was complete. Then she caused the body to be embalmed and hidden away in a place of which she alone knew.

And after this the spirit of Osiris passed into Amenti to rule over the dead until the last great battle, when Horus should slay Set and Osiris would return to earth once more. In the New Kingdom , the main temples throughout Egypt venerated a holy family modelled on the Osiris, Isis and Horus triad. O siris is also equated with the miracle of the Nile and the rich harvest, as the text from the sarcophagus of a high priestess of Amun named Ankhnesneferibra attests:. Back to Exhibitions.