A Note on the Origin of Osiris

Egypt Exploration Society

A Note on the Origin of Osiris Author(s): T. J. Colin Baly Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 17, No. 3/4 (Nov., 1931), pp. 221-222 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854764 Accessed: 09/08/2009 18:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ees. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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A NOTE ON THE ORIGIN OF OSIRIS BY T. J. COLIN BALY The legend of Osiris as we find it at the date of the Pyramid Texts is not that of Plutarch, nor, indeed, is it a single whole. Osiris was a king, the father of Horus, who inherited his kingdom, and he was killed either by drowning (Denkm. Memph. Theol.) or by being knocked down by his brother Set (Pyr.). In the first case Set is apparently not the cause of the disaster, which has the appearance of an accident in which Isis and Nephthys made an unsuccessful attempt at rescue. In this version Osiris is buried at H.t-iti in Lower Egypt. In the second case three localities are mentioned as the scene of the murder, Ndit (Pyr. 721, 819, 1256, 2188), which includes a bank (wdb) of Nedit (1008), Glths.t(972, 1033, 1799) and idb (2115). In all probability idb and the wdb Ndi.t are the same place, so that there are merely two variants. The "Bank of Nedit" suggests the drowning story, but there is no actual mention of it. Ghs.ti is mentioned in connection with the death of Osiris in line 137 of the apparently early Ramesseum Coronation Papyrus 1. The dd-pillar, which has so often been claimed as showing that Osiris was originally a tree deity2, has long since been shown to have originally been a separate god, probably totemic, at Memphis, and to have been later absorbed by Osiris (Sethe, Unters., in, 134). The Ramesseum Papyrus referred to above shows Osiris as an iin;-tree placed upon a dd, which is spoken of as Set. The identifications may be worthless-they belong to that period of identification when the doors of a shrine holding a god were called the jaws of Set, while the shrine itself was Set bearing Osiris, and so forth; but they at least show that the dd-pillar cannot have been identified with Osiris until after the latter had become the victim of Set, that is, until a comparatively late period in his development. The did-pillar itself opens up very interesting lines of thought, not the least of which touches the story of Bata, but it is of no particular importance in the study of Osirian origins. Another usually accepted statement about Osiris is that he was originally a king. There is no definite evidence for this, since the mentions of that aspect appear to be later than his identification with cnd.ti. Sethe points out in his Urgeschichte (81) that Osiris apparently took his insignia of royalty, with an exception to be commented on below3, from Andjety, and Kees (Totenglauben, 197) remarks "Vielleicht verdankt also Osiris ihm [cnd-ti] die starke Auspragung seiner Charakterziige als Konig," but no one seems to have pointed out the possibility of his having taken his kingship entirely from this source. Yet it is hardly likely that a king would shed his own attributes entirely and absorb those of another. 1 Sethe, Dram. Te.vte,ii, 242, where he points out that it may be identical with s8't, whence Osiris comes in Pyr. 1761. 2 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris,and, more convincingly, Sidney Smith, History of Assyria (1928), 123ff. 3 The Upper Egyptian crown is ignored here as being palpably a later intrusion. 29 Journ. of Egypt. Arch. xvii.

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Osiris' name is of some interest in the study of origins. The reading irw 4.t, "He who makes (his) throne," ignores the fact that in early times it is usually written A, not , and Sethe's suggestion1 of s.t ir.t, "The place of the Eye," is preferable; his later development of "Augenfreude," however, is not so attractive, despite the parallel of s.t ib, and the sense may well be quite literal. Now the most important "Eye" in early Egyptian religion is that of Horus. If Osiris is "The Place of (Horus') Eye" there must have been some connexion between them prior to the date at present supposed. An early connexion would, however, explain why an Osiris, murdered by Set, is already in alliance with Horus while the latter is still at peace with Set. It is noted above that in the Shabako Stone Osiris is apparently drowned accidentally and Horus and Set are still at peace. What more natural than that when Horus and Set became enemies the latter should become the cause of Osiris' death? In further explaining the meaning of Osiris' name on this assumption the nature of the Horus-eye comes into question, and a study of this problem in the early texts has led me to the conclusion that it may have been originally connected with that Ladanum to which Newberry refers in Journal, xv, 86 if. Ladanum was used in making incense and incense is closely connected with the Eye. Horus fumigates himself over the Eye, and in Pyr. 2075 we find: "Ho N., I have come. I have brought the Horus-eye which is in its t. Its perfume is on thee, 0 N. Its perfume is on thee. The perfume of the Horus-eye is on thee, 0 N., and thou art a ba thereby, thou rulest thereby, and thou takest thy wrr-t-crown thereby among the gods." The first part of this passage assumes that the Eye is sweet smelling and the second part may well refer to incense in view of its divinizing qualities. Further, in Pyr. 133 and 695 we read: "The Horus-eye weeps upon the dnw-bush." There is no further information in this passage but it is at least possible that the dnw-bush is the Gum-cistus and that the weeping of the Eye is the exudation of the Ladanum. If this is so it follows that Osiris must originally have been this Gum-cistus, and it is of interest in this connexion that incense was considered as an exudation of Osiris2. Osiris brought in as part of his insignia goat's-horns (Sethe, Urgesch., 81) and is early connected with a goat or ram at Mendes. Note also that at a very early period a beard, presumably the king's, was deified (Borchardt, Sahure, i, 97), and that it was so important that despite the habit of clean shaving both the kings and the gods wore long thin false beards with curled tips (Erman-Ranke, Aegypten, 251-2) not unlike a matted goat's beard. Now Newberry (ibid.) has pointed out that the goats' beards got matted with Ladanum and that this was one way of collecting it. It is not difficult to imagine the importance, and even the deification, of an object so impregnated with a sacred substance, and hence the deification of the goat itself. If Osiris were originally the Ladanum-bearing Cistus he would naturally be of the ordinary vegetation type, and the two stories of his death would be quite normal. A vegetation god is frequently spoken of as drowned, and what is more natural for a tree-god than that his death should be spoken of as "felling"? His identification with Andjety, and hence his kingship, is easy to explain when one considers the latter's connection with Ladanum. 1 Rechtsund Links, 233, and Urgesch.,79. 2 Blackman, A.Z., L, 69 ff.