In addition to the embalming of the god, we hear of the reconstruction of his body. This con- nects itself with the erecting of his spinal column, and a festival in its honour was held on the 30th of Choiak especially at Busiris in Lower Egypt. Finally, side by side with this there lingers on till the latest times the conception of the dismember- ment, in consequence of which various parts of Osiris’ body remained at different places in the land, and continued to be venerated as relics in the particular temples, the so-called Serapewms. Upon this theory, then, there was no such collec- tion of the parts of the body as is referred to by Plutarch. Thus the head of the god was said to be preserved at Memphis, the neck at Letopolis, the heart at Athribis. There is, however, no fixed system in the matter; occasionally the same parts rest at different places, according to the tradition of the temples concerned. Thus the head, for instance, is claimed not only for Memphis but for Abydos, and the legs are catalogued as Divine relics at a plurality of sanctuaries.
(6) Taken as a whole, Osiris stands in Egypt for
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the Even e of the man who after a virtuous life must die, but who afterwards rose again to life for ever. Even in early times, moreover, an influence on the conception of Osiris entered from the side of the sun-religion. This movement appears to have originated at Memphis, where Osiris wag identi- fied with Sokaris, the local god of the dead and of the sun, —in Abydos this amalgamation rarely meets us. Then, when the sun-worship was cen- tralized in Ra, the latter assumed the character of a parallel to Osiris. The custom grew up of iden- tifying the fate and the death of Osiris with the fate of the sun; and, as the old Osiris myth was also retained, duplicate dates were thus obtained for the period of the year that marked the occur- rence of the different events in the life of Osiris, For instance, the murder of Osiris fell, according to Papyrus Sallier iv. (19th dynasty) and Plutarch, upon the 17th of Athyr. Numerous other texts (from the 18th dynasty onwards), on the other hand, transfer this event to the end of the month Choiak, the period of the shortest days of the year, within which the death and the regenera- tion of the sun are accomplished. It is this con- tamination between the Osiris and the sun-god myths that explains how Osiris, from being a human king of divine descent, becomes a complete god. Thus a text of the 18th dynasty describes him in detailed fashion as creator of the world (see above, p. 179°), although, remarkably enough, it contains also copious allusions to the usual Osiris myth, and remarks: ‘Isis the glorious, the avenger of her brother (Osiris), sought him and rested not while she journeyed through this land full of grief; she ceased not until she had found him ; a wind she stirred up with her feathers, a breeze she created with her wings; she performed the panegyrics usual at burial; she raised up the wearied parts of him whose heart is still (the dead Osiris) ; she took his seed and fashioned an heir for herself.’ The extraordinary method by which Horus is here generated after the death of his father is mentioned also in Plutarch, and meets us already in the Pyramid texts. This was a matter of faith then during the whole period of Egyptian history, and is even frequently (in Abydos and Denderah) the subject of pictorial representation (cf. Wiedemann, ec. de trav. rel. a Egypt. xx. 134 ff.).
(c) Osiris in his lifetime had been a king on earth, after his death he became ruler in the world be- yond. He there passed judgment on the dead, to him were presented the prescribed offerings which were meant to procure food and drink for the dead. His sisters Isis and Nephthys play no role in the world beyond. In pores § Set, the murderer of the god, is of course tabooed there, and hence his name is avoided in sepulchral texts. This is carried so far that king Setil., in the in- scriptions on his tomb, in writing his own name, everywhere replaces the Se¢ by Osiris. It is true that alongside of the usual tradition a wholly different class of conceptions is found attached to the god Set. In Tanis, for instance, he is regarded asa good god and a favourite of the sun-god, on whose behalf he pierces with his lance the Apepi serpent—in contrast, again, to the Theban con- ception, in which Set himself corresponds essen- tially to the Apepi serpent. This difference is probably connected with the circumstance that at Thebes one started from the original form of the Osiris myth, where Set appears as the murderer of Osiris ; whereas, at Tanis, Set or Sutech, as god of the desert and of foreign parts, was amalgamated with the foreign god Baal, who was thought of as the sun-god, the result of which was that in this roundabout way Set assumed a wholly altered
character.
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Of far more importance in the future world than Set is the jackal-god Anubis, who is generally presented as a son of Osiris and Nephthys, but occasionally also as a son of Ra. He had aided Isis and directed the embalming of Osiris. Accord- ing to the usual view, he was one of the guides of the dead, whom he, alternating in this function with Thoth, conducted into the judgment-hall of Osiris. His cult had no great vogue, whereas in early times a prominent part was played by another jackal-god Ap-uat (see above, p. 183). The worship of the latter had its centres at Lyco- polis in Upper Egypt and Lycopolis in the Delta. In consequence ot this double local worship, we frequently hear of two gods of the same name, who are called, respectively, ‘Ap-uat of the south’ and ‘Ap-uat of the north,’ and, further, by a combination of Ap-uat with Anubis, two jackals are frequently portrayed upon steles of the dead as guardians of the under world.