Osiris, unknown maker from Egypt

Artwork Overview

Osiris
Osiris
Osiris
Ptolemaic Period, 305–30 BCE
Osiris , Ptolemaic Period, 305–30 BCE
Where object was made: Egypt
Material/technique: bronze
Credit line: William Bridges Thayer Memorial
Accession number: 1928.2692
Not on display
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Exhibition Label:
"Corpus," Apr-2012, Kris Ercums
The ancient Egyptian god Osiris is typically depicted as a green-skinned partially mummified man with the traditional attributes of a pharaoh. The Egyptians of every period believed that Osiris suffered death and mutilation at the hands of evil, and that after a great struggle with these powers he rose again. He became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead. The internment of small figurines such as these was therefore ubiquitous in Egyptian burials.

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Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
On view through September 24 in the Spencer’s Cabinets of Curiosity exhibition is a bronze figurine of the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, Osiris. As ruler of the underworld, Osiris is depicted as a king, wearing a tall crown and a false beard and holding a flail and crozier. Since he represents death, the lower half of his body is shown mummified. The Egyptians mummified their dead in order to provide the soul with a place to dwell for eternity. o mummify the body, priests or professional embalmers cleaned it, packed it in salt to dry it out, and wrapped it in strips of linen. It was then placed it in a hard coffin. The Egyptian “Book of the Dead” contains a series of magical formulas addressed almost exclusively to Osiris. These would be learned by the living person and inscribed on his or her coffin to enable entry into the "blessed abodes" after death. Only initiates of the cult of Osiris would know its rules and ceremonies, for these were, according to the “Book of the Dead”, “an exceedingly great mystery…in the handwriting of the god himself…. And these things shall be done secretly.”