Divine Kingdom

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Lore & Background

After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the city of Abydos became the centre of Osirian belief. Every year, a series of public processions and secret rituals were held there, mimicking the passion of Osiris and organised according to the royal Memphite funeral rituals. During the first millennium BC, the practices of Abydos spread to the country's main cities (Thebes, Memphis, Saïs, Coptos, Dendera, etc.). Under the Lagids, every city demanded to possess a shred of the holy body or, failing that, the lymph that had drained from it. The Mysteries were based on the legend of the removal of Osiris' corpse by Set and the scattering of his body parts throughout Egypt. Found one by one by Isis, the disjointed limbs are reassembled into a mummy endowed with a powerful life force. The regeneration of the Osirian remains by Isis-Chentayt, the "grieving widow", takes place every year during the month of Khoiak, the fourth of the Nilotic calendar (straddling the months of October and November). In the temples, the officiants set about making small mummiform figurines, called "vegetative Osiris", to be piously preserved for a whole year. These substitutes for the Osirian body were then buried in specially dedicated necropolises, the Osireions or "Tombs of Osiris". The Mysteries are observed when the Nile begins to recede, a few weeks before the fields can be sown again by the farmers. Each of the ingredients used to make the figurines (barley, earth, water, dates, minerals, herbs) is highly symbolic, relating to the main cosmic cycles (solar revolution, lunar phases, Nile flood, germination). The purpose of mixing and moulding them into the body of Osiris was to invoke the divine forces that ensured the renewal of life, the rebirth of vegetation and the resurrection of the dead.

In Their Own Story

In the academic world of Egyptology, knowledge of the "Mysteries of Osiris" is based mainly on late inscriptions from temples dating from the Greco-Roman period. Among these, the texts of the six chapels of the Osireion of Dendera (located on the roof of the Temple of Hathor) are the most important source. Our understanding of the ritual, its local variants and its religious context is based primarily on the Ritual of the Mysteries of Osiris, engraved at the very end of the Ptolemaic period. This source is rich in detail, but often confusing, as it is a compilation of seven books of different origins (Busiris and Abydos) and different periods (Middle Kingdom and Ptolemaic period). The inscription takes the form of a succession of one hundred and fifty-nine hieroglyphic columns arranged on three of the four walls of an open-air courtyard (the first eastern chapel). The first major translation into French was by Victor Loret in 1882, under the title Les fêtes d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak. However, Émile Chassinat annotated translation, Le Mystère d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak (834 pages), published late in 1966 and 1968, remains the standard work. In 1997, this translation was modernised, albeit almost unchanged, by Sylvie Cauville in her exhaustive publication with commentary of the texts of the Osirian chapels of Dendera.

Reader's Guide

Egyptian civilisation undeniably had secret rites. Most of the rituals performed by the priests were carried out behind the walls of the temples, in the absence of the general public. The general public usually had no access to the temple. On feast days, crowds were allowed into the forecourts, but never into the sanctuary's holy of holies. In the Egyptian mentality, djeser ('sacred') and seshta ('secret') are two notions that go hand in hand. The word 'sacred' also means 'to separate' or 'to keep apart'. In essence, then, the sacred is something that must be kept separate from the profane. Divine power is not confined to heaven or the beyond. Its presence also manifests itself on Earth among human beings. Temples, for the gods, and necropolises, for the ancestors, are places where priests exercise their role as mediators between humankind and the forces of the invisible. They are places apart, kept away from the majority of the living, and their access is subject to restrictions of all kinds, such as bodily purity, fasting and the obligation of silence. This clear distinction between sacred places and the profane world led the ancient Egyptians to endow sacredness with a strong obligation of secrecy. The priests who performed the rites in the temples were therefore bound to silence. They must not say anything about what they are doing. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased priest congratulates himself on having taken part in the cult ceremonies in the country's main towns and emphasises that he has disclosed nothing of what he has done, seen or heard. "The Osiris N will say nothing of what he has seen, the Osiris N. will not repeat what he has heard that is mysterious" —Book of the Dead, chap 133. Translation by Paul Barguet.

Did You Know?

• The most important document for the Mysteries is the Ritual of the Mysteries of Osiris in the Month of Khoiak, a compilation of Middle Kingdom texts engraved during the Ptolemaic period in an upper chapel of the Temple of Dendera.
• The Mysteries were observed when the Nile begins to recede, a few weeks before the fields can be sown again by the farmers.
• The figurines called 'vegetative Osiris' were made from barley, earth, water, dates, minerals, and herbs, each ingredient relating to cosmic cycles like the solar revolution, lunar phases, Nile flood, and germination.
• The first major translation into French of the Dendera inscriptions was by Victor Loret in 1882, under the title Les fêtes d'Osiris au mois de Khoiak.
• In the Book of the Dead, chapter 133, the deceased priest declares: 'The Osiris N will say nothing of what he has seen, the Osiris N. will not repeat what he has heard that is mysterious.'