When was osiris around

It was said that Osiris and Isis were deeply in love with each other, even in the womb. In the New Kingdom, Osiris was considered the master of the underground world, the next world — the Afterlife. In the mythology, before becoming master of the Afterlife, Osiris ruled Egypt and taught agriculture and gave laws and civilization to humans.

With Osiris dead, Seth became king of Egypt, with his sister Nepthys as his wife. Nepthys felt sorry for her sister, Isis, who wept endlessly over her lost husband. Isis, who had great magical powers, decided to find her husband and bring him back to life long enough so they could have a child together. She anointed his body with precious oils and performed the rites of embalming for the first time.

In so doing, she restored Osiris to eternal life. Osiris went on to live in the land of the deceased, presiding over the judgement of the dead. Wild ducks fly over a papyrus thicket in the Nile marshlands.

This painting comes from Amarna, the city built by the pharaoh Akhenaten. Isis tried to hide her pregnancy from Seth.

Thoth , the god of wisdom, advised her to flee because Seth would try to kill her child. She went to the marshes, where she gave birth to her son, Horus. Isis hid the child in the marshes, where she cured him from scorpion, snake and crocodile bites. One day, she left her son to search for food, and upon her return, she found him half dead. Seth had entered the marsh, transformed himself into a poisonous snake and bit the child. Isis called for help from the high gods.

Her pleas were heard by the gods in the Bark of Millions of Years the solar bark. Thoth descended to talk to her. He told her that the powers of Re would set things right and that good would triumph over evil.

Then the solar bark stopped and the earth fell into darkness. Thoth assured Isis that the earth would remain in darkness, that wells would dry up and that crops would fail until Horus was cured. Then, in the name of the sun, he exorcised the poison from Horus's body and cured the child. The sun god travels through the darkness of night in his solar bark. Drawing: Nancy Ruddell. The people of the marshland rejoiced with Isis at the recovery of her son. Horus became the archetype of the pharaohs, the sun god's representative on earth.

It was now the duty of the people to protect the pharaohs from harm, to love and respect them. If they did not, world order would collapse and the people would perish. Isis kept her young son hidden until he became an adolescent and could face Seth to claim his rightful inheritance, the throne of Egypt. While Horus was growing up, the sun god, Re, grew old and started drooling. Isis took the saliva that fell to the ground and modelled it into a serpent.

She placed the serpent across Re's daily path in the sky, and it bit the sun. Since the sun had not made the serpent, he could not cure himself. He turned to Isis for help. She said she could do nothing unless he revealed his secret name to her. By learning his name, she would gain knowledge of his power.

Re realized this was the only way he could be cured. He hid from the other gods and allowed his secret name to be passed from his bosom directly to hers. Isis was forbidden from revealing it to anyone except her son Horus.