The religion of ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie.

  • Flinders Petrie
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The religion of ancient Egypt / by W.M. Flinders Petrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/114 (page 40)
    If we try to trace the historic basis of the Osiris myth, we must take into account the early cus¬ toms and ideas among which the myths arose. The cutting up of the body was the regular ritual of the prehistoric people, and (even as late as the fifth dynasty) the bones were separately treated, and even wrapped up separately when the body was reunited for burial. We must also notice the apotheosis festival of the king, which was probably his sacrificial death and union with the god, in the prehistoric age. The course of events which might have served as the basis for the Osiris myth may then have been somewhat as follows. Osiris was the god of a tribe which occu¬ pied a large part of Egypt. The kings of this tribe were sacrificed after thirty years’ reign (like the killing of kings at fixed intervals elsewhere), and they thus became the Osiris himself. Their bodies were dismembered, as usual at that period, the flesh ceremonially eaten by the assembled people (as was done in prehistoric times), and the hones distributed among the various centres of the tribe, the head to Abydos, the neck, spine, limbs, etc., to various places, of which there were four¬ teen in all. The worshippers of Set broke in upon this people, stopped this worship, or killed Osiris, as was said, and established the dominion