Description
Cool Things About Osiris: The Ancient Egyptian God of the Afterlife and the Dead.
The Origins of Osiris
Osiris (also known as Wosret, Ausar, and Ousir) is the Ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead. He is the son of Ra and Nut.
Osiris began as a human god, as said by Ptolemy. He had many human names in different texts. By the time he became associated with the Egyptian sun-disk (Osiris bin Thoth), he was thought to have become a god. His name was associated with everything about the afterlife, including a journey to the Afterlife. He was often described as having five faces, a human crown, a human beard, a human heart, a human voice, and the ability to speak to the dead.
How much time was spent on details of his life, we don’t really know. It’s said he had a human heart and was always happy. He was protective of his own people and was often depicted as a sort of messiah figure for Egypt. He was known to have a personal staff with which he could summon the dead. Perhaps unfortunately he is most well-known for erasing people’s memories of the good and bad things that happened in the lives of the deceased.
Who was the first Egyptian to use the word ‘Osiris’? We do not yet know, but he became a god in the late 17th century BC. His cult spread through Egypt throughout the New Kingdom, while from the 18th century onwards, he became a semi-mythical god with a number of different shrines dedicated to him.
The theory that he was based on the Greek god Zeus has been disproved. The two gods have little in common. However, he did have many characteristics in common with Persephone. There are also many parallels between Osiris and Ra as the sons of Ra.
The Death and Resurrection of Osiris
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was a god who was killed by his brother and then resurrected. The story of his death and resurrection was a way for early Egyptians to explain the natural cycles of the seasons and the flooding of the Nile River.
Osiris was arguably the most important god of the Egyptians after his brother, who raised sacrifices to praise the sky god, Ra. Every year throughout the spring and summer, the sun god would entice the sun airliner and travel among the stars until eventually, the sun god would kill himself and return to the earth to reign for ten months.
For those of us in the United States who believe in a rising and setting sun, in those seasons he is most prominently associated with flooding, winter crops, and the beginning and end of summer, he is often depicted as a regal man in vast robes.
According to the evidence I’ve gathered from history, along with what I’ve personally seen in the pictures above, Osiris was definitely a joker. If you can believe the biblical tale of how he got that facial hair, he certainly knew a few tricks of the trade. He was known for telling jokes and ribbing his half-brother and/or half-wife Anubis for his many failings and failures.
As I’ll explain, you really don’t need to be a skeptic to recognize the humor, but I believe there’s a lot more to it, and as we continue to unravel the reasons for his appearances and activities, we will find a few important hidden meanings.
Let’s begin with his most common mask:
Another common face of Osiris is the one wearing a mask. It may be described in a few ways.
Some say that his mask was made of gold, the metal used in the creation of the world or perhaps he was wearing a mask of opal or some other “divine” stone. Most agree though that his mask was made of papyrus — the same material as today’s masking tape.
The Afterlife of Osiris
In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the god of the underworld and the afterlife. He was married to the goddess Isis and had a brother named Set. Osiris’s myth was the inspiration for the resurrection story of Jesus Christ.
The myth of Osiris is a fascinating tale that follows his life, death, and rebirth. The different religions may have varying interpretations as to how and why he lived, but one major theme remained consistent throughout: The strength of faith in the afterlife was essential to the faithful. The story is told of how he gained his kingdom with the last of the gods, who had failed to rescue him the first time around.
No one knows precisely where the story of Osiris ends or what will happen next, though there are hints of an impending end to the current “Age of the Earth.”
For me, this fascinated me. The scientific community is not unanimous on whether the earth is currently in a state of global climate change (i.e. Ice Age), but the religious community is very clear that it is necessary for the continued existence and progression of humankind. Even Pope Francis recently declared, “When Jesus was born, the cry was, ‘There is a newborn baby God!’ And the Romans said, ‘He has been born to offer humanity salvation,’ and from that moment the God-God became a human being.”
When I started to dig deeper into this kind of thing, I found that there were skeletons and bones of deceased humans that could be proof of the possible existence of other forms of intelligent life on this earth. The people that were buried with their dead loved and are cherished by them. These people believed that this land would soon have a new life. If religion and science disagree, then it seems the masses are ready to follow the science.
The Legacy of Osiris
Osiris is an ancient Egyptian deity of fertility, life, death, and resurrection, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, as well as the ancient Near East and the Far East. The Egyptian name Asar or Asari (or Asira) originally meant “king” and was already in use as an epithet of Osiris in the Old Kingdom.By the New Kingdom, it had attained the status of an office title associated with the god. He was the patron god of judges, temple guards, astrologers, door-keepers, merchants, doctors, doctors of aesthetics and laws, musicians, real-estate salespersons, poets, and pharmacists. He was also honored in cases of conflict or war, with many depictions of his role in battle dating back to the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. Although his cult became strong among the elites in the late New Kingdom, it seems that his popularity was more common among the masses.
Osiris was probably one of the first Egyptian gods to be identified with an individual god in all its aspects, that is, with his consort, behind whose back he lived and worked. He along with Inanna were often combined into one god or a couple as one of the major Egyptian gods that were worshipped in the region.
Although he gradually moved away from being the sole deity worshiped in temples dedicated to him, he still faced opposition from other Egyptian gods, especially Amaunet, Anubis, Set, Seth, and Horus. Right at the beginning of the 19th century, he was threatened by Ptah-Nwarh, the son of Amaunet, and his adopted son Typhon, who both wanted the throne of Egypt for themselves.
Many of his cult temples were destroyed during the two Thirty Years’ War (1291–1297) against the Hittites, and some of them were converted into tombs by other religious and wealthy people only to be destroyed by the pyromaniacs themselves a century later.
Why Osiris is Important Today
Osiris was a god of great importance in ancient Egypt because he was a god of life and death. Osiris is a major figure in Egyptian mythology, and his importance is based on his role as a mediator between the gods and humans. As the god of the afterlife, Osiris was held responsible for the resurrection of the body and the granting of eternal life to the deceased.
This 17-ounce, double-walled stainless steel water bottle is perfect for your daily outings. It will keep your drink of choice hot or cold for hours. It also features an odor- and leak-proof cap. Throw it in your car’s cup holder on your way to work, take it with you on hikes, or toss it in your bag for any time you get thirsty.
• High-grade stainless steel
• 17 oz (500 ml)
• Dimensions: 10.5″ × 2.85″ (27 × 7 cm)
• Vacuum flask
• Double-wall construction
• Bowling pin shape
• Odorless and leak-proof cap
• Insulated for hot and cold liquids (keeps the liquid hot or cold for 6 h)
• Patented ORCA coating for vibrant colors
• Hand-wash only (dishwasher not recommended due to vacuum seal)
• Blank product sourced from China
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