God Osiris | Egyptian God of the Afterlife and Resurrection

• 16 / 5 / 2023

Ancient Egyptian Gods

According to the Egyptian religion, Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, who was the symbol of evil. With deception, Seth made Osiris lie down in a chest, which he immediately closed and threw into the Nile.  The chest drifted and reached the shores of Lebanon, where it was finally found by Isis, who brought it back to Egypt.

Seth, however, managed to seize the chest and split Osiris' body into many parts that he scattered across Egypt. Isis then went in search of the limbs, reassembled the body, and revived Osiris to conceive Horus, who, using his mother's magical powers, defeated Seth and restored the divine order again.
In the Book of the Dead, there is a drawing of Osiris sitting on a throne in the afterlife with his wife Isis and his sister Nephthys next to him, with his four children around him, helping him in the judgment of a dead man.

The ancient Egyptians always thought that Osiris made a simple test for every dead person. He gets his heart out of his body and puts it on one side of the steelyard, and on the other side of it, he would put a feather. If the feather was heavier than the dead person's heart, he would be eaten by Amamut (an animal with the body of a hippo, head of a lion, and the tail of a crocodile), and it would be his final fate as he was not a good person in his life. But if the heart was heavier than the feather, the dead person wore very silky clothes and went to the garden (heaven) because he was a good person in his earlier life. From the moment you arrive in Egypt, Egypt Tours will take care of your visit to the land of the Pharaohs thanks to our highly qualified guides specialized in Egyptology.

Osiris, the Afterlife, and Divine Judgment

According to Egyptian belief, Osiris was not only the ruler of the underworld but also the judge of the dead. The Book of the Dead illustrates a crucial scene where Osiris presides over the judgment of souls. The deceased person's heart was weighed against the feather of Ma’at, the goddess of truth and justice. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the soul was granted passage to the paradise of the Field of Reeds. However, if the heart was heavier, it was devoured by Amamut, a monstrous creature with the body of a hippo, the head of a lion, and the tail of a crocodile, condemning the soul to oblivion.

Osiris was assisted in this judgment by his wife, Isis, and his sister, Nephthys, along with his four children. This divine process reinforced the concept of moral righteousness, emphasizing that only those who lived virtuous lives would attain eternal peace.