WEBVTT - The Cult of Osiris, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.360 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:16.360 name is Robert. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.239 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.040 And in this episode, we're going to be diving into 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:26.040 ancient Egyptian mythology once more to discuss an important deity 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.159 connected to the topic of resurrection, which I think was 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.959 probably on my mind over the weekend due to, first 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.760 of all, it was the Easter holiday. Also on Weird 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.440 House Cinema, which is of our Friday episode and the 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.400 Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed, we talked about 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.559 Doctor Five's Rises again. I did not think about this 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.319 in terms of the holiday at all. I didn't think, oh, 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.720 this is our Easter selection. But then I noticed our 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.760 social media posts about it on Easter Sunday and it's like, 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.360 you know, talking about the rise of Doctor Five's He's 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.200 Rising again, and I was like, oh, wow, we sort 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:02.560 of accidentally nailed it there. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.959 It's a movie that has so many resurrections. It has 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.560 Doctor Fibes himself coming out of a sort of a 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.119 chemically induced slumber where at the end of the first 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.160 movie he replaces his blood with embalming fluid and then 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.240 goes to sleep in a giant glass contraption under the floor. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.679 At the beginning of this movie, he wakes up again, 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.040 So that's one sense of rising, though I guess it's 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.760 questionable whether he technically died or not there, so he 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.040 rises at the beginning of the movie. There the rest 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.440 of the movie is about him trying to literally resurrect 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.280 his wife Victoria played by Carolyn Monroe from the dead. 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.399 She sort of spins the whole movie in a glass 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.679 display case, and he is going to take her to 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.160 a temple in ancient Egypt under which lies the secret 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.720 to resurrection and eternal life. And he departs the end 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.600 of the movie on a barge singing somewhere over the 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.800 rainbow to take Carolyn Monroe down there and bring her 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.040 back to life. And I would mention a third resurrection 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.200 in the film, which is that the character Vulnavia, which 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.840 is melted like sort of a robot clockwork organism. We're 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.960 not exactly sure. From the first movie, it's doctor Phibes's 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.160 hinchwoman who helps him commit his quote amazing murders. She 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.280 is melted by acid at the end of the first 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:21.080 movie and then just inexplicably comes back in the second movie. Also, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.640 they resurrect Terry Thomas. Remember, yeah, he bites it in 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.560 the first movie, and then he just comes back playing 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.359 a totally separate character in the second movie. And I 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.280 think that motif of coming back in bodily form but 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.680 playing a different character, maybe maybe it may have some 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.880 thematic resonance. That's right. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.399 So what we're gonna We're gonna be talking about Osirius. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.800 I don't think Osyrus came up in Doctor fivee rises again, 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.320 maybe they made passing reference to him. I think I 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.400 made passing reference to Osirius when we were talking about 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.120 the film. But this is a deity best known for 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:04.359 his connections to fertility, to the ancient Egyptian underworld, and 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.320 to rights of mummification. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.800 So, you know, I've seen lots of depictions of the 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.680 god o Cyrus before I was familiar with the imagery 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.360 associated with him. But something I had never noticed until 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.480 I was reading up in preparation for this episode is 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.600 that while on the top half of his body, he 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.360 is often depicted, you know, looking kind of like a 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:26.680 like a king or a pharaoh, you know, very stately, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.200 with a beard, with his with his face exposed under 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.160 the crown and all that. If you look down at 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.640 the lower part of his body, apparently his legs are 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.400 depicted wrapped together in the in the wrappings of mummification, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.480 so it's like the bottom half of his body is 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:43.600 already mummified. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.120 That's right. Yeah, And I invite listeners who are in 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.560 a position to do so safely, to go ahead and 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:54.160 look up some images of historical depictions of Osiris from 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.480 ancient Egypt. Yeah, he's generally depicted as a mummified king, 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.720 you know, bound as in is in the wrappings of mummification. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.920 His skin, as is exposed, you know, in his face 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.520 and neck and hands, is apparently either black or green. 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.840 I tend to find more images of green color choices 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.000 though that may have at one point signified putrification and death, 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.720 but came to symbolize his connection to the cycle of 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.960 death and life, of resurrection and rebirth, particularly resurrection and 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.440 rebirth linked to that of plant life. On top of this, 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.240 he is generally depicted as wearing a crown, and he 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:38.599 brandishes a crook and a flail, so strong agricultural vibes already. 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.839 But also with power and authority, you know, it's the 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.000 crook and the flail and the autaf crown, the crown 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.000 I think of Upper Egypt. This is the imagery of 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:46.360 a king. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.359 Yeah, absolutely so he is. He is very much like 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.720 an embodimentum of a mummified king. So let's get a 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.080 little bit into the myth of Osiris. Now, standard caveat 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.240 with mythology. You know, as usually is the case, we're 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.479 not dealing with a singular idea from a singular time 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.520 and place, but rather a figure and associated narratives that 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.960 stirred in the minds of ancient peoples for thousands of years. 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.200 We have various accounts of Osiris to go off of, 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.480 but our understanding of Osiris is also incomplete, and indeed, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.960 we don't know with one hundred percent certainty what his 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.480 name even means. It might well mean the Mighty One, 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.080 but I think there are some other ideas out there. 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:32.320 There's plenty that experts have had to piece together about 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:38.400 Osiris that is not explicitly obvious in the source material. Now, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.200 one of the books that I turned to for this 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.760 episode is the two thousand and two book Egyptian Mythology 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.800 by Geraldine Pinch. Pinch also points out that we don't 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.279 know when, how, and where Osiris was first worshiped. He 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.520 might have kicked things off as kind of a deified 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.560 pre dynastic king. He might have been an old vegetation spirit, 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.599 a god, or even a mother goddess. And I'm also 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.840 assuming based on this that you know, there might have 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.920 been some interplay between these concepts, you know, various varied 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.640 possible origins, gods that are combined into new gods and 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.960 so forth. Now, Pinch summarizes the sort of the what 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.520 you might think of as the canonical rise and fall 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.760 and resurrection of Osiris, pointing out that first of all, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.240 he's generally thought to have been born with a crown 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.560 on his head. So taking that concept of born a king, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.560 that is theay referenced in Christian hymns, sometimes referring to Jesus, 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:39.640 but taking it to a literal degree. 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.560 Ah, So, whereas a lot of kings, say, might be 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.160 born with a right to the throne that has then 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.920 recognized in a coronation by placing the crown upon their head, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.839 that this king is born with the crown already there, like, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.359 it doesn't need to be recognized. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.960 Exactly king at his birth literally because he's look, he's 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.159 wearing a little crown. I guess maybe the crown grows 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.760 with him. I mean, he's a god. He can do 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.159 these things. And fortunately his mother was also a god, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.880 so he was the eldest son. It is that of 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.840 the earth god Geb and the sky god as Newt. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.400 So in many respects, he is the place where earth 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:21.560 and sky converge. He's the very horizon. Now. Pinch shares 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.880 that some accounts allude to him overcoming his father in 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.520 a vicious dynastic struggle for rule, and one late text 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.400 claims that he died for the first time during this struggle. However, 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.320 she stresses that no accounts of Osiris's rule and his 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.800 death survive from before the Greco Roman period concerning this issue, 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.040 so but one way or another, he comes to reign 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.760 over Egypt with his sister consort Isis at his side. 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.560 But of course this rule does not last according to 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.760 the pyramid texts of the Late Old Kingdom, so these 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.840 are for more than four thousand years ago. Osiris was 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.040 murdered by his brother Seth or Seth, who we've talked 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.320 about on the show before, in part because there is 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.680 some mystery and disagreement on what the set animal or 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:12.360 Seth animal is that his iconography is based upon. But anyway, 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:16.080 we have this this brother Seth strikes his brother down 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.960 and tramples him and or drowns him in the Nile River, 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.120 and Pinch writes that a double death may have been 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.000 deemed necessary to kill a god. 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.840 Okay, So, one way or another, either drowned in the 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.480 water or trampled or both, Osiris is dead. 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.200 That's right, He's overthrown, He's been murdered. And one way 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.640 or another, Osiris's dead body becomes fragmented, either via a 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.680 deliberate chopping up of his corpse by Seth or possibly 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.360 due to decomposition. In either event, the dead body of 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.640 Osiris becomes divided into in some cases fourteen pieces, though 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.439 sometimes it's like forty two pieces. A certain number of 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:01.559 pieces of the dead god come into circulation here. And 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.920 I think this varies from something that happens right away again, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:07.600 like I've killed you and now I'm going to chop 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.520 you up, to something that Seth does later, like comes 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.800 and despoils the corpse of Osiris, or something that happens 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.760 naturally later on. In any case, the pieces are either 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.360 scattered or become scattered. 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.480 Okay, so yeah, that's something I don't know if I 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.160 ever understood before. Do the pieces come apart as something 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.280 that his enemy does to him? Is it kind of 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.400 a William Wallace situation or is it more kind of 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.720 a some kind of magical principle at work. 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.360 Yeah, based on my understanding of the different accounts that 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.199 are looking at here, it looks like it does vary, 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.960 and it also seems to vary whether those pieces stays 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.200 to some degree scattered or are truly brought together again. 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:53.560 It kind of I guess it kind of depends on 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:58.600 what sort of concepts are important to the story. That 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.960 may make more sense when I start talking about specifics 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.720 here in a minute. But in any event, it falls 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.880 to Isis to gather the pieces of the fallen Osiris 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.960 and seek his resurrection via powerful magic, with the aid 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.520 of Annibus, an underworld deity and thought a god of 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.800 magic who've also talked about on the show before. Now, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.080 Isis herself was the mother and throne goddess, so each 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.320 Egyptian king is her child. It falls to her to 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.120 find and gather the pieces of slain Osiris to assemble 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.480 him and hold a long vigil over the corpse along 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.120 with their sister Nephthus, and they use a spoken magic, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.400 Pinch says, to drive away Seth the disturber. So I 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.560 guess there's this idea that even as they are trying 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.600 to bring him back, Seth is trying to disrupt their attempt. 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:50.040 Almost like a scavenger or predatory animal circling. Yeah. 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:55.120 Now, during this reassembly, Osiris is He's described by Pinch 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.520 as the inert one. So all of the pieces of 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.040 Osiris are either in hair together or assembled into a 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:07.000 hole except for his fallas. And remember again that Osiris 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.640 is also a god of fertility, and by this Fallus 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.600 or depending on the story, by a flash of divine fire, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:19.040 whatever the case Isis becomes pregnant with the son by 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.440 the deceased god. And this son is going to be Horace, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.200 the son destined to overcome Seth. So she raises Horace 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.480 in the marshes. She has to raise him in safety 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.280 and secrecy until he is old enough to challenge his 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.640 father's usurper, which he does. He defeats Seth and he 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:38.880 becomes the new ruler. 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:40.959 Now I think you're going to get into this in 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.320 a minute. But that part of the myth is important 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.240 because this will come to have a great significance for 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.080 the succession in the real world of divine kingship as 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.280 a concept in Egypt. 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:57.800 Right now. Another interesting part here is that despite Osiris's 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.959 connection with the concept of resurrection by many definitions or 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.880 in certainly sort of modern interpretations, and I guess like 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.680 dungeons and dragons to interpretations, he is not truly resurrected 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.839 at this point. He does not become living flesh again. 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.720 He is not resurrected into this world. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.120 Right and this will be an important point of contention 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.240 for a question that I think we're going to get 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.520 into in part two of this series about the concept 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.680 of resurrection in ancient religions. But yeah, Osiris is not 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.240 thought to be raised back to the form and the 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.120 place where he originally lived. There is a instead, he 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.880 goes on living, but it is in a new form 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.040 in a new world. There is in a sense a 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:42.240 new Osiris. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.880 That's right. So basically, the higher powers and other powers 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.080 of note here decide that okay, Osiris, you were just, 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.400 but your death was not just. So therefore he's permitted 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.400 to leave his now mummified body and become the Lord 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.360 of the dead in the afterlife, the judge and ruler 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.840 of the kingdom of the dead. And it seems like 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.480 a pretty cool gig to have a Pinch points out that. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:07.240 Quote. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.640 At all periods. There are a few texts that describe 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.840 Osiris as a terrifying figure who dispatches demon messengers to 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.640 drag the living into the gloomy realm of the dead. 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.960 So inert but not powerless by any means, and he 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.920 is just he is an appropriate judge. He said to 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.440 rule over the dead as when enifer, which either means 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.760 the one whose body did not decay, and we see 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.840 that again his connection to mummification and rights of mummification. 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:36.520 Though I think it's also, according to Pinch, sometimes translated 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.520 as the beneficent One. This was also apparently the title 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:55.319 for the high priest of Osiris in religious traditions. These 0:13:55.360 --> 0:14:00.160 are the basic core myths concerning Osiris to consider, but 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.440 you know, we always go deeper than that, like what 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.319 are we to make of these myths? What do people 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.280 think they meant? What did they signify? Why did they 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:12.480 have such you know, cultural significance, And again we have 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.760 to realize that understandings and interpretations change over time. Middle 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.920 Kingdom rituals seem to associate the body of Osiris with 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.360 barley and the trampling seth. Again, remember the trampling being 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.560 part of the murder of Osiris. There seems to be 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.960 a strong case for associating that trampling with the donkeys 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.920 that would thresh the grain via trampling, thus linking his 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.720 death and resurrection in this earliest known example to the 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.840 cyclical reaping and sowing of crops. 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.160 Yes, and again asterisk on the word resurrection there. But 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.640 you know, it's an interesting thing how people often do 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:57.240 associate religious ideas of resurrection with the cycles of life, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.120 in the cycles of plant life in the seasons. But 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.800 when you were talking about donkeys threshing grain, you know, 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.240 I made another kind of association there, which is that 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.560 the grain begins as something that is from the living plant, 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.000 but then when it is is put through agricultural processing, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.680 it is in a way reborn, and it doesn't go 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.560 on to live again as a plant, but instead it 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.560 goes on to live in a different way. It becomes 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.520 something else, which is grain and ultimately food. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.680 Yeah, these different sort of phase changes occur. It has 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.520 also pointed out that you would have these ethyphallic figures 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:39.400 of Osiris that would be planted with crops, so they 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.560 would have like a representation of the god planted with 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.000 the grains, planted with the seeds that you know, that 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.600 would that would help enable everything to grow into its 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:49.200 next form. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.480 If if phallic, does that mean that's a representation of 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:53.520 the god with an erection? 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.120 Yes, that's the literal, different definition though. I was looking 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.200 at an image of one of these figures in the 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.080 British Museum's website and and I'm not sure that that's 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.520 really as pronounced in this image, but but that is 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.160 that is all. That's how it's classified. 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:12.640 Oh wait, I see it. 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:18.240 Well, it's well compared to it's not as it's not 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.000 as as obvious as one might expect. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.720 Yeah, it's certainly not as obvious as you might see. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.720 And like some other statuary from the ancient world. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.000 Well, I assume the thing is Ocyrus is wrapped in bandages, 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.160 so it's like it's he's not naked. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:34.720 Now. 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.320 There were also New Kingdom period traditions that linked o 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.720 Cyrus to water, with all the liquids of his putrefying 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.920 body being linked to the annual inundation of the Nile, 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.760 and not necessarily just putrefying liquids like you know, just 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.280 the various liquids of the body, but also like putrification 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.560 liquids thrown in there. So I don't want to make 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.440 it sound like it's all gross or anything. And at 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.960 least one tradition holding that his body parts are bare. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.960 It's scattered sites throughout Egypt and the tomb of the 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.160 left leg on the Nile island of Baiga. I've also 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.320 seen this place referred to simply as the tomb of 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.960 Osiris Uh. Anyway, different traditions hold that this is the 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.639 source of the inundation. Now I'm thinking about the underworld 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.200 and the cosmos of the ancient Egyptians, which I think, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:19.919 on one hand, it's easy to think of that, Okay, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.720 this is these are the worlds beyond our world, but 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.920 also they're kind of tied to to what is seen 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:33.320 and what is not seen, but kind of implied. Basically. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.080 The one area I want to touch on here is 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.240 the idea of the sun bargs the manget, the boat 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:42.080 of millions of years that travels through the sky with 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.160 the sun and then down each night over the horizon 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.320 and then through the underworld to emerge once more on 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.600 the other side. And of course there's there's fighting that 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:53.439 takes place. It is like a kind of a it's 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.879 a perilous journey for the Sun through the underworld to 0:17:58.000 --> 0:17:59.800 come back again when the sun rises. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.440 Yeah, it's a whole quest. It's a whole quest line. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.280 Yeah, which is which is at once again very epic 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.120 and otherworldly, but also tied directly to what we observe 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:11.880 occurring with the sun. Like, okay, the sun goes here 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.040 and then it goes under seemingly and comes back. What's 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.200 going on there? And then we have this mythic extrapolation 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.080 of that. But according to Pinch. 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.080 It's singing somewhere over the rainbow. 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.159 According to Pinch, the New Kingdom under and the New 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.720 Kingdom Underworld books specify that during the darkest hour of 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:34.040 the night, the god that is that is driving the 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:39.520 sun barge ray or raw passes through the underworld chamber 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.960 where the body of Osiris rests, and in this moment 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.040 they become one soul and this allows Osyrus and all 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.080 the dead to live again. M So, now that we've 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.000 established some of the basics about this underworld fertility god. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.320 I wanted to get into the cult of Osiris a 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.640 bit more. Again, we don't know exactly when or how 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.280 Osiris was first worshiped, or indeed the earliest form or 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.080 forms that he took in these ancient Egyptian belief systems, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.280 but over time he becomes vitally linked with the cycle 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.520 of life and death, with crops, with the inundation, with mummification, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:17.440 and the promise of resurrection. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.480 And just a note on terminology. When we talk about 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.840 things like the cult of Osiris, cult in that sense 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.520 does not have the negative connotations that cult has in 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.440 the modern world. That's just the term you use for 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.399 like any any group in the ancient world that is 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:33.639 devoted to the care and worship of a god. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.560 Right now, one topic that I was really taken with 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.800 was discussion of the popularity of Osiris, and to a 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.479 certain extent, the overall popularity of the ancient Egyptian religion, because, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.639 on one hand, I don't remember where I read this, 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.680 but I know I've read commentary that the ancient Egyptian 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.120 religion was something very much all of the desert of 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.399 this nile nourished region and something that just did not 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.840 travel and was not picked up by other cultures in 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.800 a meaningful deeper way. But on the other hand, the 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.640 trappings of ancient Egypt clearly have fascinated other cultures for 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.840 an exceedingly long period of time, often in these waves 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.119 of Egyptomania, as it's sometimes termed. So I really wanted 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.679 to get into this latter idea a bit more so 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.840 I turned to various sections dealing with Osiris in the 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:29.520 excellent twenty sixteen book Egyptomania, A History of Fascination, Obsession, 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.840 and Fantasy by Ronald H. 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:32.640 Fritz. 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:38.200 Okay, so Fritz mentions that the aforementioned pyramid texts from 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.440 more than four thousand years ago refer to differing ideas 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.840 about life and death, but also they bring up the 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:50.000 rising popularity of Osiris within the pantheon. And I was 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.600 thinking about this as well. I think this is something 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.960 interesting to observe in religion, that it's mostly within these 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.199 polytheistic traditions that you really get to see or in 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.320 the and or magic and this idea of the rise 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.400 and fall of particular gods and goddesses, as well as 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:10.000 the more like straightforward adoption of foreign originating gods into 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.760 a given pantheon. You know, we've discussed examples of this before, 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.560 but there's not there's either no room for this or 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.159 not as much room for this in monotheistic traditions. 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.040 Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on the specific 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.359 monotheistic religion, but yes, like growing up a lot of people, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:28.840 this is another one of the many ways that if 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.200 you grow up in a certain religious context, you might 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.800 just assume that all religions are similar to your religion. 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.600 So like growing up in a Christian context, I think 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.240 a lot of people think that all religions have a 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.639 quote jealous God, like the like the Abrahamic faiths. Do 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:46.720 you know a God who says you shall worship me 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.199 and me alone? And there's basically one right way to 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.800 have a religion, and it's it's the one you've got, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.440 whereas with a lot of polytheistic religions, it's it's much 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.200 more free form. You know that you can add God 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.520 on to the list of gods that you worship, you 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.080 can remove gods, you can sort of like just shift 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.840 your focus wherever you think it is best. And that 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.040 doesn't compute Like a lot of Christians look back on 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.480 the pagan context of the Roman Empire, say, and they 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.480 don't realize that. Like when you would be preaching about 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:23.040 Jesus to Roman pagans, to a lot of them, they 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.160 just be hearing about this is well, this is another god. 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:25.399 You know. 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.800 I've got Apollo, and I've got Jupiter and these other 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.520 gods that I worship, and here somebody's talking about a 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.639 new one. Oh, except this is weird. They're telling me 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.199 that if I worship this new one, if I worship Christ, 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.200