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The ancient Egyptians were the first culture that we know of systematically to correlate an afterlife with good and evil actions in this world. Far from being obsessed with death, the Egyptians were above all lovers of life. Their ideas about post‐mortem survival affirmed the value of life in this world. Their joyous feeling for a bounteous land teeming with fertility carried over into a hope for resurrection—entailing mummification—that lacks the pessimism of many earlier cultures. The evolution of belief in Osiris as judge of the dead, from the early Pyramid texts to the Book of the Dead, both enforces fear of post‐mortem judgment and seems to open the possibility of resurrection to all, and not only to Pharaoh and his immediate circle.

The main subject of this book is the cultural influence of rabbinic and especially talmudic scholarship on some early modern British poets and intellectuals, as mediated principally by Selden, the most learned person in England in the 17th century. To borrow an image from Milton’s Areopagitica: Selden is England’s Osiris, whose scattered limbs can only be gathered up separately, that is, his erudition is too vast to be comprehended in its entirety by one scholar. This book treats only slightly Selden’s notable achievements as a historian of the laws and constitutional institutions of England, concentrating instead on the rabbinical works that constitute his most mature scholarship.

This chapter discusses how four poets made use, or may have done so, of specific articles from Scientific American, a magazine that deliberately set out to provide the public with sufficient information about scientific developments to contribute to democracy. Sometimes a poet only later acknowledges it as a source, as in the case of Rae Armantrout’s poem “Natural History,” which critiques sociobiology. The chapter speculates whether Frank O’Hara’s famous poem about the sun was written in response to a specific Scientific American article and concludes that the circumstantial evidence is not strong enough. Jackson Mac Low’s poems in Stanzas for Iris Lezak make use of several articles from Scientific American. The chapter argues that his acrostic proceduralism is an original mode of inquiry by which he exposes hidden strata in scientific texts, and exposes norms of poetic communication. Robert Duncan explicitly cites a diagram in an article on human evolution in the Scientific American in his poem “Osiris and Set,” which is shown to be responsive not only to that passage in the article, but also to the general mood of an issue of the magazine full of advertisements for advanced nuclear weaponry.

Abydos became the capital of the eighth Upper Egyptian nome during the Old Kingdom and also became the administrative seat of Upper Egypt from the Fifth Dynasty onward. The tombs at Umm al-Ga’ab were not as monumental as the later pyramids, but they were impressively large for their time and embodied several basic religious beliefs that were to shape the history of ancient Egypt. Like many important Egyptian archaeological sites, the Temple of Osiris-Khentamentyu and the adjoining town of Kom al-Sultan did not undergo thorough archaeological research until the beginning of the twentieth century.

The chapter's subject is Deinon, one of the most obscure authors from antiquity. It treats Plutarch's employment of Deinon in which the ascription is explicit or plausible. Plutarch uses Deinon mostly in the Artaxerxes, but also refers to his work in the Themistocles (27.1), Alexander (36.4) and De Iside et Osiride (31.363c). Plutarch's employment of Deinon or acquaintance with his text was more widespread than his use of Ctesias, and may have even spanned several periods of his writing. The chapter begins with an analysis of Plutarch's passages, and explores what we can learn about Deinon from these sections, proceeds to compare them with what can be said of Deinon and his work in general from other sources, and then presents some ideas on Plutarch's adaptation of Deinon's work.

Since the dawn of Egyptian history, the roster of numina worshiped in the territory of the sixteenth township of Lower Egypt has always featured ram and fish at the head. Together the two animals indicate the probable subsistence base of the human community in this part of Egypt. The fish (schilby) became the symbol and emblem of the township; but the ram dominated the city as “Lord of the Abiding Place (Ddt).” While Mendes is seldom mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts contain some theologically significant references to the town and its god. A prominent theme depends upon the homophony of ba/b3, “ram,” and bai/b3j, “hypostatic projection of identity and power.” Possibly through the mediacy of Andjety, “the shepherd” and his association with Osiris, the latter was brought to Mendes, where he is said to be “pure,” and commands the respect of the “lords of ‘Anpet”.

Almost every Egyptologist has their opinion when it comes to the structures of the Akhenaten and the colossi in particular. In order to identify and establish colossi, there are different exercises formed. The appearance of colossi has naturally caused relation to the “Osiris pillars” in terms of their architectural contexts. While numerous examples have been given to identify colossus, an author states the name of his wife as the name of colossus. For clearer identification, the inscriptions given served as a big help. Furthermore, numerous examples testify to the fact that it was common for a king to lend his facial features to representations of a deity.

This chapter discusses the architecture of the Lichthof in the tomb of Karakhamun and its symbolic meaning. The term “Lichthof” refers to a sunken courtyard below surface level in the Late Period tombs of the Theban necropolis. These courts form a prominent and essential element of architecture in the monumental “temple-tombs” of the Kushite and Saite periods. In general, the architectural design of the Lichthof consists of two pillared porticos, on the north and south side of the court respectively. The Lichthof served as a stage for rituals in honor of the deceased and for the cult of Re-Osiris. The chapter describes the Lichthof in the tomb of Karakhamun and explains the meaning of pr-nw chapels in Karakhamun's court. It also examines the two courts of Mentuemhat's tomb palace and suggests that the architecture of the tomb courts of Karakhamun and Mentuemhat transfers the two-dimensional iconography into a monumental three-dimensional rendition of the abode of Osiris in the netherworld.

With its grand monuments mirrored in the waters of the Nile, the island of Philae, by the southern edge of the First Cataract not far from Aswan, is one of the most enchanting places in Egypt. In the Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman Periods a huge complex of sacred buildings was progressively created on the island. Dominated by the temple of the goddess Isis, the complex owes its splendour not only to the Egyptian and Ptolemaic kings but also to the Nubian Meroitic rulers. Following the completion of the first Aswan Dam in 1902, the temple complex at Philae became partially submerged in water. The entire temple would be dismantled into individual blocks and put together again on the artificially raised island of Agilkia, some distance away.

This chapter investigates two questions. First, did the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty have an impact on Egyptian ideas about the afterlife, and second, did it have an impact on the way in which Egyptians conceptualized the relationship between Osiris and the deceased? In connection with the second question, the chapter also considers whether or not the rise to prominence of the god Sarapis, who was sometimes identified with Osiris, influenced Egyptian perceptions of that relationship. The evidence shows that the rise of the Ptolemies did not bring about any changes in Egyptian ideas about the afterlife. Nor were Egyptian conceptions of the relationship between Osiris and the deceased affected by the advent of this line of kings. As far as one can judge, the identification of Osiris and Sarapis in the Ptolemaic Period had little impact on this either. Closer investigation shows that many religious beliefs and customs which are often claimed as innovations of this time are actually attested much earlier, and thus cannot be explained as products of Greek influence.

As traditional religious authority was challenged by scientific discoveries and the rationalism of the Victorian era, many modernist authors responded with literature that appeared to further threaten conventional faith, treating Christian narratives in a profane manner or appending them to pagan religions. Rather than entirely diminishing Christianity, however, such treatments can be seen as rejuvenating. This chapter examines how Joyce and Lawrence each revitalize Christianity through “foreignization,” or the intentional estrangement of the familiar. It examines Lawrence’s novella, “The Man who Died,” asserting that Lawrence promotes an emphasis of Christ’s resurrection as opposed to his death, by depicting a post-resurrection sexual affair with a priestess of Isis. Joyce, on the other hand, seems to relish death over resurrection, and his incorporation of the Isis/Osiris myth in Finnegans Wake dwells on the time spent in the underworld. While Lawrence's reframing of Christianity emphasizes actuality, Joyce's favors potentiality.

This chapter further explores Diodorus’s Euhemerism through the gods, or culture bringers, who dominate the first six books of the Bibliotheke and are legitimized by his inclusion of mythology. He contrasts these culture bringers, especially Dionysus and Osiris, with the advance of civilization under a metus hostilis to show the superiority of the former. In doing so, Diodorus establishes the standards for deifying a great leader and elevates his conception of ruler cult above the often debased form practiced by late Hellenistic rulers such as Ptolemy XII of Egypt and Antiochus I of Commagene. Through the medium of the culture bringers Diodorus contributes to the debate at Rome, surrounding Julius Caesar, over deification of great leaders, which can also be seen in contemporary authors such as Cicero, and offers his own justification for why Caesar merits divine status.

Hegel refers to the Egyptians’ belief system as “The Religion of Mystery” or, with an alternative translation, “The Religion of the Enigma.” With this designation he intends to emphasize the hidden or secret nature of much of the Egyptian religion. Hegel’s analysis of the Egyptian cult of the dead sheds light on one of the seminal issues in the development of the Hegel schools in the 1830s and ’40s, namely, the question of whether he had a theory of immortality. Hegel’s positive assessment of the Egyptian belief in immortality affords important insight into the nature of his own thought on this issue. Chapter 7 argues that this analysis reveals that Hegel did in fact have a theory of immortality, albeit an unorthodox one, that constitutes an important part of his overarching theory of the development of subjective freedom.

The Introduction outlines the main topics that are discussed in the book, giving a short summary of the contents of each individual chapter. It also considers why Osiris was such an important deity for the ancient Egyptians. The crucial significance of Osiris for them lay in what he personally had experienced. His life, death, and resurrection were perceived to be particularly momentous in relation to their own fates, and thus they figure more prominently in the textual record than do accounts of the exploits of other Egyptian deities. Aspirations for the Osirian afterlife took time to coalesce and reach their fullest form of expression. This book aims to trace the key stages in the development of these aspirations and see how these are reflected in the textual and archaeological records.

This chapter investigates the earliest evidence for the god Osiris in royal and non-royal sources of the Old Kingdom and explores how these conceptualize the relationship between him and the deceased. Particular attention is devoted to the problems involved in using ritual texts as a source of evidence and what these can tell us about Egyptian aspirations for the afterlife. The conclusion reached is that the relationship between Osiris and the dead envisaged by the Egyptians of this time was fundamentally the same for royalty and non-royalty. Both kings and their subjects were distinct from the god and subordinate to him, relying upon Osiris and other deities to supply their needs in the afterlife.

This chapter challenges the theory of the democratization of the afterlife, according to which privileges that were restricted to royalty in the Old Kingdom, like association with Osiris, were usurped by and extended to non-royalty in the political turmoil of the First Intermediate Period. It also investigates the relationship between Osiris and the dead in the Coffin Texts and other sources contemporary with them, and the rise in importance of Abydos as a venue where the deceased could interact with the living as members of that god’s following during the Middle Kingdom. Relationships between the deceased and other deities like Re and Hathor are examined as well. The chapter concludes by exploring the means through which the Egyptians of this time hoped to join the following of Osiris. Particular attention is given to the increased importance of justification as a prerequisite for doing so.