Osiris

Ancient Egyptian god, the embodiment of goodness, who ruled the underworld after being killed by Set. The pharaohs were believed to be his incarnation. The sister-wife of Osiris was Isis or Hathor; she miraculously conceived their son Horus after the death of Osiris, and he eventually captured his father's murderer.

Death and resurrection In the most common tradition, Osiris was trapped by Set in a chest which he threw into the Nile. It floated into the Mediterranean and landed at Byblos in Phoenicia. When Isis discovered the whereabouts of the body, Set dismembered the corpse into 14 pieces, dispersing them over Egypt. Isis eventually collected the parts together, finding all but the phallus which had been eaten by fish. In one tradition, she built a shrine over each resting place, spreading the power of Osiris through the land; in another, she created the first mummy by putting together his remains with the help of Nut, his mother; Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead; and other deities connected with the afterlife. After Horus avenged his father, Osiris transferred his earthly powers to his son and retired to the underworld.

Evolution of the cult Osiris may have originated from Syria as a form of the god of vegetation who dies annually and comes to life again; two versions of Osiris's death are connected with the Nile, chief source of flood and vegetation in Egypt. The mythology of his death and resurrection as ruler of the dead was established in the Delta in about the 5th Dynasty, around 2550 BC.

By the Middle Kingdom, around 2040-1640 BC, the identification of royalty with Osiris had been extended to commoners; every dead man was called Osiris, followed by his personal name. When the cult reached Upper Egypt, its centre became Abydos, where the tomb of Zer, third king of the 1st Dynasty, was identified as the tomb of Osiris. In the Late Period, from around 666 BC, Osiris became the chief god, even superseding Amun-Ra as ruler of the world.

In order to unite the Greek and Egyptian subjects of Ptolemy I's empire, Osiris was transformed into Serapis - a merge of Osiris + Apis, the bull god of Memphis who carried the dead to the tomb, with elements of the cults of Zeus and Hades. The greatest temple of Serapis was the Serapeum in Alexandria. The cult of Osiris, and that of Isis, later spread to Rome.

Representation Osiris was depicted as a dead, bearded king, black or green, wearing a shroud and the Atef Crown of Upper Egypt, and holding a crook and flail.