From Gilgamesh, Man of Action to Osiris, God of Inertia

Irene Banks
Nov 2
11 min read

Book Information

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day (#ad)

Eva von Dassow, et. al.

Chronicle Books, San Francisco

ISBN: 978-1-4521-4438-2

Head of the God Osiris, ca. 595-525 B.C.E. Brooklyn Museum. Late Period, second half of XXVI Dynasty, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

In Western culture, children as young as six years old are taught to write stories with a standard plot structure: beginning, climax, and end. This structure is as old as the ancient Babylonians and the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first literary work in the Western Canon. The next chronological work in the canon is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. When I first read it, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, in part, because I was surprised to discover no plot structure. The story was enigmatic and seemingly nonsensical. Rather than give up and move on, I chose to do further research to better understand ancient Egyptian literary culture. Given its lack of plot, the next logical thing to focus on was character development, yet even that was puzzling. For example, the god Osiris is a character whose backstory took thousands of years to develop. He made his first shadowy appearance in the archaeological record in the Fifth Dynasty (2500–2350 BCE). During the Middle Kingdom (2140-1780 BCE), his story was further developed so that by the New Kingdom (1550-1185 BCE), Osiris was a most powerful god, second only to the sun god, Re. In his opening hymn of the Book of the Dead, he was difficult to understand mainly because he didn’t seem to do anything. He didn’t move; he didn’t speak; he didn’t express emotions. After having read Gilgamesh, whose hero was always moving, both his body and his mouth, Osiris seemed dull, and, well, dead. Ironically, it took a Greek writer to give Osiris a Westernized plot structure. The Osirian myth was finally rounded out in classical antiquity with the historian Plutarch around 100 CE. Plutarch gave him a backstory with a beginning, climax, and end that made sense to my Western mind.

Funeral chamber of the pyramid of Ounas in Saqqarah. Jon Bodsworth, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons

Osiris is one of the first gods in any religion whose backstory was created after the advent of writing. There were prehistoric precursor gods who displayed similar qualities, however, unlike Re, a god with archaeologically traceable prehistoric origins, Osiris's artifactual beginnings are traced to the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts[1]. During the Victorian era, he received a lot of attention from early egyptologists because they made connections between ancient Egyptian texts and Biblical stories. Osiris's myth included resurrection which was a topic of keen interest to Christian egyptologists. The resurrection myth was developed relatively late in Osiris’s backstory and wasn't fully rounded out until classical antiquity, long after the religious beliefs of ancient Egypt had died out.

Facsimile of a vignette from the Book of the Dead of Ani. British Museum , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

To the ancient Egyptians, Osiris came to hold the important position of god of the underworld. It is in this position that he makes his first appearance in the Papyrus of Ani (c. 1250 BCE) - a preserved version of the Book of the Dead. The papyrus opens with two hymns - the first in honor of the sun god Re, and the second, in honor of Osiris. Osiris's mythology, by then, had been under development for some 1,200 years. Given his complicated backstory, there is a plethora of topics one could choose to write about him. In this essay, I chose to focus on the legend of Osiris - that is, the possibility that he was one of the earliest real live kings of Egypt and was later mythologized into the god of the underworld. In this way, his legend is like that of the Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh, who was also a possible real live king of ancient Sumer and later became god of the underworld.

Andjety. Oesermaatra0069, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where does one start with the real king Osiris? Like Gilgamesh, he straddles that time in human history when we moved from prehistory, before writing was invented, to history and the age of the written word. There are historical suggestions that Osiris may have been based on an earlier god, Andjety who may have been a historical deified king. According to archaeologist Richard H. Wilkinson, Andjety was worshipped “. . . apparently as a deified ruler, and his iconography clearly demonstrates his influence on Osiris. . . [H]e was the local god of the 9th Lower Egyptian nome[2] centered at Busiris. . . From the beginning of the 4th dynasty he was depicted wearing a high conical crown decorated with two feathers very similar to the Atef Crown later worn by Osiris. Andjety also held two sceptres - a crook and flail - which likewise became Osirian insignia.” (Wilkinson 97) According to egyptologist John Romer, “. . . Osiris seems to have been a relative newcomer and to have sprung from nowhere. His first-known appearance is at Saqqara, in a private tomb chapel. . . where he appears as an ill-defined deity. . . As a powerful, rounded presence, however, Osiris makes a sudden grand appearance in the darkness of the Memphite pyramids. . . Osiris‘ ultimate origins, however, remain mysterious, as those of a deity should be.” (Romer 340)

Fragments of papyri from Abusir 25th century BCE, or later. See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mysterious is an effective way to describe Osiris’s origin story although this term has been used in a way that makes the ancient Egyptians seem like a naïve and secretive people who worshipped rudimentary gods. The mystery of Osiris is less about secrecy and more about the enigma created because only fragmentary physical artifacts have survived the weathering of time. As egyptologist Berry Kemp said, “The myth of Osiris, or the strands of myth that gathered around him, are mostly preserved as short illusions. The Egyptians were far less interested in what the gods did than what they stood for. The Book of the Dead, like other similar texts, includes very brief episodes in which the gods interact, but no myth narratives of any length.” (Kemp 25)

Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaying Humbaba at the Cedar Forest. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The enigma of Osiris contrasts sharply with the legend of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian king is a man of action, often to his own detriment. He is easily loved (or easily hated) for what he does. Osiris is the opposite. He does nothing. Pictures of him show a stiff mummy usually propped up by his sisters, Isis and Nephthys. His enigma is confounding – one wants to learn more about him, perhaps in the hope that he can be caught doing something.

The sun rises from the mound of creation at the beginning of time. Original artist unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By the time we reached the New Kingdom (1550-1185 BCE), and the Papyrus of Ani, Osiris is inextricably tied to ancient kingship. We see this connection in his opening hymn in the Book of the Dead. He is described as the “King of Eternity”. This epithet has a different meaning than it does in Judeo-Christian belief. Egyptologist Eric Hornung discusses the meaning of eternity in his book Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. To understand the ancient Egyptians’ conception of eternity, one must start with their ideas about existence (creation) and nonexistence (pre-creation). The state of nonexistence has two primary elements: “. . .limitless waters or the primeval flood. . . and completely opaque, total darkness. . .” (Hornung 177) “. . . [F]or the Egyptians the entire extent of the existent, both in space and in time, is embedded in the limitless expanses of the nonexistent. The nonexistent does not even stop short at the boundaries of the existent, but penetrates all of creation.” (Hornung 179) “. . . [T]he nonexistent is the inexhaustible, unrealized primal matter, the pleroma from which they take strength and which challenges them to create something that exists without qualification or hindrance. This was the task entrusted by Egyptian society to its supreme representative, the king: to complete what was unfinished, re-form creatively what was finished, and to preserve the existent, not as a status quo, but in a continuing, dynamic, even revolutionary process of remodeling and improvement. . . Since the created world is bounded and ordered in time and space, it follows that it has an end and must disappear; it is an island. . . It has duration, but there is no such thing as eternal existence, which would be a contradiction in terms. The pair of Egyptian words we translate ‘eternity’ (nḥḥ and ḏt) in fact means ‘time’. . .” (Hornung 183) Calling Osiris King of Eternity, therefore meant he was the King of Time.

Male Head with Crown of Upper Egypt. Walters Art Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — *Male Head with Crown of Upper Egypt.* Walters Art Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Osiris is also tied to kingship as the “Lord of the Wereret-crown, whose White Crown is tall, Sovereign of gods and men.” (von Dassow Plate 2-A) According to Wilkinson, “. . . [F]rom the Middle Kingdom he is frequently shown wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt – possibly indicating his Upper Egyptian origin. . .” (Wilkinson, 121) From a societal perspective, the tying of the gods to kingship was felt to be necessary, going all the way back to the collapse of the Old Kingdom (c. 2200 BCE). As Erik Hornung said, “The more state authority fails, the more important is the gods’ role as helpers of individuals in need. . .” (Hornung 211) During the First Intermediary Period (2200-2140 BCE), “. . . [T]he earthly ‘god,’ the king, is no longer the guarantor of an enduring order of society.” (Hornung 227) It is for this reason that by the time of the New Kingdom and the Book of the Dead, Osiris was a king-turned-god who ruled over both the gods and the people. The fallible human king just wasn’t enough.

Crook and flail. Jl FilpoC, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Osiris adopts additional regalia that connects him to prehistoric kingship. “He has taken the crook and the flail and the office of his forefathers.” (von Dassow Plate 2-A) Wilkinson writes, “These items of regalia have been thought to represent pastoral implements, but the origin of the flail is not clear and it may have had other meanings. . . [I]t seems more likely that both items were taken over together from royal regalia as they are present in representations of kings from the time of Narmer[3] on.” (Wilkinson 120) Notably, the crook and flail go back to prehistoric times and were carried by Osiris‘s precursor, Andjety.

Part of Name Panel of Senwosret I. Metropolitan Museum of Art , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

By the Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty (2000-1780 BCE), Osiris‘s backstory had been developed so much so that he was worshipped as an extremely powerful god. John Romer writes, “. . . [Osiris was] given a form and definition similar in some respects to those of the Itj-towy[4] kings themselves. Holding the distinctive implements known as the crook and flail and wearing the high white crown of Upper Egypt, hundreds of royal statues standing in a wrapped-up mummy-like pose. . . were attached to the columns of several temples, and they also lined the pyramid causeways of the Itj-towy kings, where, so it appears, they stood as images of the king himself in transition, the king as Osiris on route to his tomb.” Romer stresses that the development of Osirian, and in general, all gods', iconography was not by accident. “Nor were such identifications simple acts of piety: the sudden thrust to prominence of. . . Osiris shows the Itj-towy court, making careful, conscious choices about the nature of the state they were engaged in building.” (Romer 341)

Triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Metropolitan Museum of Art , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

That state came to include not only Osiris’s connection to kingship, but also to hereditary kingship, that is, the passing of the ruler’s position down to an heir. In the case of Osiris, the heir was Horus, one of the oldest, and in fact, prehistoric, gods of Egypt. Ironically, Horus had existed before his purported father, Osiris did. By the time of Greco-Roman classical antiquity, the historian Plutarch had fleshed out a mythic cycle about Osiris and his son Horus that was far more holistic than the snippets and connotations we get from ancient Egyptian sources. According to Dr. Ogden Goelet, Professor of Egyptian language, “Myths, or stories about the gods, were seldom gathered into narrative passages of any length. In most cases when a book on ancient Egypt mentions a myth about a certain deity, what is actually meant is a series of facts and events which modern scholars have been able to compile from a wide variety of sources. There is, moreover, evidence that the Egyptians tended to invent myths to explain the origins of rituals and ritual instruments, rather than inventing rituals in order to reenact mythical events. Although we probably know more about the legends concerning Osiris than about any other god, even this myth is essentially a scholarly reconstruction from many texts.” (von Dassow 159)

A drawing of a carving in Dendera Temple, Egypt, depicting Osiris of Hermopolis of Lower Egypt rising from his bier at the command of Horus. E. A. Wallis Budge (1857–1937)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the Book of the Dead, Osiris‘s heart is said to be glad, “for [his] son Horus is firm on [his] throne.“ (von Dassow Plate 2-A) Barry Kemp writes about the importance of the Osiris-Horus myth. “The Osiris myth is centered on a confrontation between gods. On the one side is a family group: Osiris, a lawful king of Egypt, in an undefined time, his wife (and sister) Isis, and their son, Horus. Their opponent is Seth. . . who, with a naturally violent and rebellious disposition. . . murders Osiris and dismembers his body. Isis protects her son Horus who avengers his father through victory over Seth and becomes the next king of Egypt. . . [T]he myth was not so much a story as a grouping of characters who illustrated more than one spiritual and ethical theme. One lesson was that a stable society rested on family continuity and especially upon the transfer of male authority from one generation to the next. . . It provided the model for royal succession and for family life generally.” (Kemp 25-26)

Tutankhamun embraces Osiris. Solomon Witts, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Barry Kemp’s observation about Osiris‘s myth being less a story and more a grouping of characters helped me better understand the Book of the Dead. I kept wanting to find the historical source of Osiris and then read forward in a chronological way until I understood him as a character. This type of research was possible with Gilgamesh and by the time I completed it, I understood him. But this was not possible with such an inert character. Osiris doesn’t say or do anything. His mummy just stands there. I was used to Gilgamesh – a man of action and derring-do. Osiris, a dismembered corpse who was reconstructed and held together in mummy bandages couldn’t move. It is his enigmatic stillness that makes him seem truly ancient while Gilgamesh seems like he could be a man of our time. Ironically, both characters were created and fleshed out during that time in human history when writing was invented and perfected. Because of that connection, the legends of Osiris and Gilgamesh offer a fascinating look into ancient conceptions of gods and kingship.