the Book of the Dead ( PDF )

The Gods Of The Book Of The Dead.
depicted in human form, sometimes with a crown upon his head and sceptre I in his right hand; and
sometimes he has upon his head a goose,[4] which bird was sacred to him. In many places he is called
the "great cackler" and he was supposed to have laid the egg from which the world sprang. Already in the
pyramid texts he has become a god of the dead by virtue of representing the earth wherein the deceased
was laid.
[1. See Lanzone, op. cit., tav. 385.
2. See Lanzone, op. cit., tav. 395.
3. Recueil de Travaux, t. v., p. 10 (l. 61).
4 See Lanzone op. cit. tav 346.]
{p. cxiii}
Ausar or Osiris, the sixth member of the company of the gods of Annu, was the son of Seb and Nut, and
the husband of his sister Isis, the father of "Horus, the son of Isis," and the brother of Set and Nephthys.
The version of his sufferings and death by Plutarch has been already described (see p. xlviii.). Whatever
may have been the foundation of the legend, it is pretty certain that his character as a god of the dead was
well defined long before the versions of the pyramid texts known to us were written, and the only
important change which took place in the views of the Egyptians concerning him in later days was the
ascription to him of the attributes which in the early dynasties were regarded as belonging only to Ra or
to Ra-Tmu. Originally Osiris was a form of the sun-god, and, speaking generally, he may be said to have
represented the sun after he had set, and as such was the emblem of the motionless dead; later texts
identify him with the moon. The Egyptians asserted that he was the father of the gods who had given him
birth, and, as he was the god both of yesterday and of to-day, he became the type of eternal existence and
the symbol of immortality; as such he usurped not only the attributes of Ra, but those of every other god,
and at length he was both the god of the dead and the god of the living. As judge of the dead he was
believed to exercise functions similar to those attributed to God. Alone among all the many gods of
Egypt, Osiris was chosen as the type of what the deceased hoped to become when, his body having been
mummified in the prescribed way, and ceremonies proper to the occasion having been performed and the
prayers said, his glorified body should enter into his presence in heaven; to him as "lord of eternity," by
which title as judge of the dead he was commonly addressed, the deceased appealed to make his flesh to
germinate and to save his body from decay.[1] The various forms in which Osiris is depicted are too
numerous to be described here, but generally speaking he is represented in the form of a mummy wearing
a crown and holding in his hands the emblems of sovereignty and power. A very complete series of
illustrations of the forms of Osiris is given by Lanzone in his Dizionario, tavv. 258-299. The ceremonies
connected with the celebration of the events of the sufferings, the death and the resurrection of Osiris
occupied a very prominent part in the religious observances of the Egyptians, and it seems as if in the
month of Choiak a representation of
[1. Compare ###. Naville, Todtenbuch, Bd. I., Bl. 179.]
{p. cxiv}
them took place in various temples in Egypt; the text of a minute description of them has been published
by M. Loret in Recueil de Travaux, tom. iii., p. 43 ff, and succeeding volumes. A perusal of this work
explains the signification of many of the ceremonies connected with the burial of the dead, the use of
amulets, and certain parts of the funeral ritual; and the work in this form being of a late date proves that
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