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CHAPTER 5: OSIRIS IN THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD

In her research for What This Awl Means, Janet Spector accessed the written records left by white

settlers (traders, missionaries, government workers), which described to some extent the culture of

the native peoples in the area she investigated. She also consulted members of remaining related

tribes still living in the area. Comparable sources of information are obviously not available for the

Egyptians of 4000 to 3000 BCE. Instead, ethnographic data can be obtained only from obliquely

related sources, such as the Nilotic tribes discussed in the previous chapter. Historical, written data is

found only in the records and iconography of the Dynastic Egyptians.

The first written material, the Pyramid Texts, separated from Predynastic mortuary culture by

approximately 400 years, provides the closest possible written link to the mortuary rituals and spells

of the Predynastic people. Their grave culture suggests the performance of well-established mortuary

rituals at the graveside, and these undoubtedly included spells, offering verses, incantations, and

professions — perhaps the precursors of the Pyramid Texts.

Using the example of Mesopotamia, Ucko stated that, in cases of continuity of culture from prehistoric

to historic times, the beliefs and practices of the historic culture "may be important and legitimate"

(Ucko 1962: 43). In the case of Egypt, the historic mortuary culture focused on a belief in the

immortality of the king, addressed frequently in the Pyramid Texts as an "Osiris" or intimately related

to Osiris, god of the Underworld. Evidence of the Osirian beliefs does not appear until the written

Pyramid Texts in the late 5th and 6th Dynasties. Symbols associated with Osiris, such as the djed

pillar, are not found amongst Badarian or Nagada iconography. Hence it seems as though the early

Dynastic priesthood developed the Osirian cycle as a religious framework and legitimation for the

rituals and beliefs surrounding the immortality and divinity of their dead king. In this chapter,

however, I argue the case for the presence of an Osiris-like mortuary deity and concomitant set of

beliefs and practices in the Predynastic as a prerequisite for placing at least some of the figurines

within the Osirian system.

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PREDYNASTIC MORTUARY CULTURE

The Egyptian emphasis on mortuary beliefs forms the basis for much of their historic art, literature,

and architecture. That the Minoans constructed elaborate palaces, the Mesopotamians massive

temples, and the Egyptians extensive tombs and mortuary temples attests to their respective cultural

differences and philosophical beliefs, at least at the official, state level. Only 7% of the

Mesopotamian figurines come from graves and the rest come from domestic circumstances, whereas

nearly all of the Egyptian figurines are found in graves or the mortuary environment. Therefore, the

method of interpretation for the figurines of each culture must be entirely different. For example, it

would be illogical to examine the mortuary practices of the historic Mesopotamians for insight into the

use of the hundreds of domestic figurines found throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. All that

can be tentatively concluded is that perhaps, like the historic Mesopotamian religion, the focus of

prehistoric religion may have been on the living rather than the dead.

I n the case of Egypt, the historic religious pre-occupation with personal immortality and the after-

death experience is prefigured in the Predynastic archaeological record. Little remains of the

domestic environment of the Predynastic Egyptians, whereas thousands of graves have been

excavated. The widespread presence of grave goods demonstrates a belief in some form of

continuation in the afterlife, and with the increase of wealth and centralisation of power, these beliefs

became so important that today we remember the resultant state-based culture more for its mortuary

than for its secular accomplishments. Even for the average Egyptian during the historic period, the

afterlife seemed of great importance, for they lived in mud brick housing but, if possible, were buried

in stone tombs. Anyone who could afford to, made elaborate preparations for the afterlife (Baines

1991c: 147) and built a tomb in the desert (ibid 144).

If any sense can be made of the Predynastic figurines, it must be within the context of mortuary

beliefs, and significant clues as to the nature of these beliefs should be evident in the religious beliefs

and practices of the historic Egyptians. I emphasise the word "clue". The state-based mortuary

religion of historic Egypt converged, at least in the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom, on the

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elite, particularly the king. The Predynastic grave goods display a more egalitarian approach to the

afterlife and demonstrate the enactment of rituals for perhaps all classes, with some differentiation of

burial practice for special individuals, such as those in the Armant bed burials. As class differences

became more pronounced when the various cultures approached unification and state-based

hierarchy under one "divine" leader, the mortuary cult came to focus increasingly on the elite, as

reflected in the appearance of a small number of very wealthy brick-lined tombs by the end of

Nagada III. The end of the Predynastic saw a major shift of wealthy burials to Abydos, where later

Dynastic Egyptians believed Osiris to be buried.

Egyptologists widely hold the belief that only after the Old Kingdom were commoners admitted to the

afterlife on their own merits. Certainly after the First Intermediate Period (2181-2040 BCE), the

written texts begin to include nobles and other commoners and these texts begin to appear on their

coffins and tombs. Perhaps even before this, during the late Old Kingdom, this process of

"democratisation" began (Lesko 1991: 101).

This process does not necessarily demonstrate that, after the First Intermediate Period, commoners

themselves began to believe in the afterlife and take steps to ensure the necessary requirements for

the preservation of their bodies and hence their souls. Rather it suggests that, for political reasons

foIlowing the disturbances of the First Intermediate Period, the elite began to accept commoners into

their version of the afterlife, perhaps in order to gain their support for their ruling position. For while

kings built pyramids, nobles organised their tombs, and priests developed liturgies, spells, and rituals,

the average person still lived in Predynastic style, with Predynastic-style graves (Baines 1991c: 132 &

n24), suggesting little had changed for ordinary Egyptians since the Predynastic period. Old

Kingdom documents regarding the power of the dead to inflict harm on the living (ibid 152-155) also

testify to a more general, widespread belief in the afterlife than the elite texts would suggest. Since

the royal cult served the king, his priests, and the elite (perhaps 5% of the population) (ibid 126-7),

leaving the rest of the population to serve their own religious needs, these graves and documents of

the ordinary Dynastic Egyptians demonstrate the continuation of Predynastic beliefs and practices,

the predecessors of the royal mortuary cult.

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Although the official rituals and beliefs grew out of those of the Predynastic, they did not mirror them,

for the historic official rituals concentrated entirely on the soul of the king. Therefore, the historic

texts, iconography and architecture can provide only clues to the possible reasons for the presence of

grave figurines, as this study discovered them not to be found in the graves of ruling or elite

members. The historic material might also provide clues to help explain the great variety of figurine

styles, and some of the lesser emphasised iconography of the historic period can perhaps be traced

to various figurine styles of the Predynastic, such as the sexually ambiguous fecundity figures and the

Nile god, Hapy.

The afterlife, for the Dynastic Egyptians, kings and commoners (at least after the First Intermediate

Period), focused on the eschatological beliefs surrounding the god Osiris. The deceased king, from

the earliest records, was believed to be the god Osiris, while the living king was Osiris' son, Horus.

As the "democratisation" process developed, everyone became an Osiris after death and gained

immortality in the "Land of the Westerners".

The origins of Osiris are obscure, and no agreement has been reached on his existence prior to his

appearance in the Pyramid Texts. The collection of spells and scraps of mythology from various

sources including the Pyramid Texts52 tells a story of the god Osiris, who was murdered and

dismembered by his rival, Seth. His sisters, Isis and Nephyths, found him lying by the river. Isis

reassembled him, revived him, and engendered their son Horus by copulating with the revived god

before he entered the Underworld as immortal king and judge. The elements of this collection of

myths can be interpreted in a number of ways: a legitimation of inherited power; a demonstration of

the divinity of the ruling king; a declaration of the immortality of the king and hence his divine

authority; a metaphor for the resurrection of the human soul, particularly the king's, in the after-life;

and a metaphor for the cycle of the seasons and vegetation as determined by the annual inundation

of the Nile.

52 The most comprehensive collection of the Osirian myths was eventually compiled by Plutarch in his book, De !side et Ositide, inthe second century AD.

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This chapter demonstrates the possibility, or perhaps the probability, that Osiris, or a god very much

like him, was the focus of the Predynastic mortuary beliefs as well as those documented from the

Dynastic. In the absence of textual evidence directly from the period in question, and in the absence

of any material evidence which can be identified unequivocally as Osirian, my argument relies on

clues from the earliest mortuary texts, examples from comparative ancient and contemporary

religion, and the religious implications of the natural phenomena most significant for a settled,

agricultural people living along the upper Nile.

The Pyramid Texts and the Origins of Osiris

The earliest mortuary texts produced by the Dynastic Egyptians were the Pyramid Texts — a collection

of spells and myths which first appeared on the tombs of the late Fifth and Sixth Dynasty kings.

These texts sit the closest to the Predynastic period, although separated by at least 400 years. This

vast gap in time inhibits the assumption of a direct relationship between Predynastic mortuary beliefs

and these texts, but some hints may be gleaned from them, especially considering the overall

conservative nature of Egyptian culture and religion, in which key characteristics persisted despite the

fluctuations of 3000 years of Dynastic history.

In brief, and developed in detail further below, at least four sometimes apparently conflicting,

concepts of the afterlife of the king occur in the Pyramid Texts: (1) the deceased king becomes an

immortal spirit and travels with the sun-god Re in his solar barque for eternity; (2) the deceased king

ascends to the sky as an immortal star, sometimes alongside Re; (3) the deceased king becomes one

with the god of the Underworld, Osiris, and goes to the Land of the Westerners (that is, the

Underworld) with Osiris; (4) the dead king becomes associated with the constellation Orion in some

way.

These royal eschatologies focus on two separate astronomical regions of the sky: the Northern Sky

and the stars surrounding the polar centre; and the Southern sky, including the Decanal belt and the

path of Re along the ecliptic. The Northern Sky is composed of the circumpolar stars, which never

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set and hence are considered immortal. The dead king ascends to this region of the sky and

becomes an immortal star.

The Southern sky contains a band of constellations, the Decanal belt: a series of 36 constellations,

each taking 10 days to rise above the horizon (hence Decanal), and which the Dynastic Egyptians

used to calculate their calendar and clock. Among constellations are Orion, Sothis, the Morning Star

and the Lone Star (Faulkner 1966: 160-61), with Orion and Sothis being the first two constellations of

the belt. In the eschatology focusing on Orion, the king joins Orion and ascends and descends with

him as the seasons change. The movements of Orion, rather than those of the sun, mark the

seasons for the Egyptians, and Orion, as discussed below, becomes associated with Osiris, a god,

who, like Orion, dies and is reborn with the seasons.

The system focused on Re, the sun god, follows the ecliptic, which is the path the sun takes across

the Southern sky. In the beliefs surrounding Re, the king joins him in the solar barque and follows

the immortal diurnal path of death and resurrection with the sun. But the region of the ecliptic, for the

Egyptians, was not inhabited with celestial deities taking form in the constellations of the ecliptic, as it

was for the Babylonians and later the Greeks.

The beliefs focused on the king's becoming a Lone Star or travelling with Re are clearly part of a

celestial philosophy, while the Osiris myths have a chthonic element. Re is a sky god, while Osiris is

a chthonic god of the Underworld.

These various concepts exist side by side, for the most part, in the Pyramid Texts. The stellar and

Osirian beliefs rarely overlap (Faulkner 1966: 160-61), but more recent scholarship (Allen et.al. 1989:

1) tries to form a unity of apparently disparate beliefs, placing the Osirian aspect as the first stage of

the king's journey to the afterlife, where he rises in the east like the sun (Pyr. 1465). Earlier scholars,

also attempted to reconcile the Osirian and the Re elements. Wolfhart Westendorf, in his much

quoted essay, "Zu FrUformen von Osiris and Isis" concluded from references in the Pyramid Texts

that Osiris and Isis were originally cosmic deities in the service of the sun (Westendorf 1977: 96-103).

Osiris is the horizon from where the sun rises (Pyr. 585a, 621b), while Isis is the barque which bears

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(gives birth to) the morning sun (Pyr. 210b). These cosmic associations, he argued (ibid 103-4) were

not reflected in the historical image of Osiris as the dead king and partner to Isis as goddess of the

throne.

Although the main eschatologies stand out in the Pyramid Texts, other solar and celestial conceptions

of the afterlife "include an infinite variety" (Griffiths 1980: 64) of which those of Osiris and Re are only

two. Re, as a Heliopolitan God, was preceded by other solar myths (ibid) to which Westendorf would

place Isis and Osiris in service.

These attempts to amalgamate the myths of Osiris and Re into one, internally consistent belief about

the afterlife of the king make the anomalous and contradictory elements in the Pyramid Texts stand

out all the more starkly. The ubiquitous references to the king as Osiris are woven into the Pyramid

Texts along with accounts of the king as a star and as an immortal spirit under the protection of the

sun-god, Re. Although the dead king is frequently called "Osiris", the Osirian eschatology appears to

be the least developed in the Pyramid Texts, and occasionally at odds with the "king as a star" and

the Re doctrines:

Re-Atum will not give you to Osiris, andhe shall not claim your heart nor have powerover your heart. ... 0 Osiris, you shall neverhave power over him, nor shall your son [Horus]have power over him. (Pyr. 145-147)

... you are the Lone Star ... look down upon Osiriswhen he governs the spirits, for you stand far offfrom him ... (Pyr. 251)

... he [Re] will never give me to Osiris, for Ihave not died the death. (Pyr. 350)

... you are this Lone Star which comes forth fromthe east of the sky, and who will never surrenderhimself to Horus of the Netherworld. (Pyr. 877)

May Osiris not come with this his evil coming; donot open your arms to him. (Pyr. 1267)

The Lone Star and Osirian beliefs, however, tend to overlap in another aspect which associates Osiris

with Orion, who is, as is Re, "The God Who Crosses the Sky" (Neugebauer & Parker 1960: 25):

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O King, you are this great star, the companion ofOrion, who traverses the sky with Orion, whonavigates the Netherworld with Osiris; you ascendfrom the east of the sky, being renewed at your dueseason and rejuvenated at your due time. The sky hasborne you with Orion, the year has put a fillet on youwith Osiris. (Pyr. 882-4)

In this passage, the mortuary deity appears to be Orion when visible in the night sky, and Osiris when

not visible, that is, in the Underworld. This is probably a reference to the behaviour of Orion, which

disappears from the night sky for two months of the year. In reality, Orion is still "crossing the sky"

during daylight hours, but cannot be seen and is deemed to be in the Underworld. The connection

with Orion gives Osiris both sky and chthonic associations. Osiris at times is associated with the

earth (as the son of Geb), the Nile inundation (Pyr. 388, 589, 788, 848, 857, 868, 1944, 2007), the

Lnderworld (Griffiths 1980: 515-84; Otto 1968: 22-30), and vegetation. A spell from the Coffin Texts

(Faulkner 1973) characterises Osiris as an agricultural deity associated with the growth and

maturation of grain:

I live and I die, I am Osiris,I have gone in and out by means of you,I have grown fat through you,I flourish through you,I have fallen through you.I have fallen on my side, the gods live on me.I live and grow as Neper whom the honoured ones cherish,one whom Geb hides,I live and I die, for I am emmer53, and I will not perish (CT 330)

A text inscribed on the sarcophagus of Ankhnesneferibra characterises Osiris as a potent agricultural

deity who is "the maker of grain" and "who gives life to the gods with the water of his limbs, and bread

to every land". The inscription goes on to explain that "barley has taken form out of the limbs of

Osiris" (Quirke 1992: 57-58).

At the same time as Osiris is an agricultural earth deity, he is also a sky god — the father of a sky god

in the form of a falcon, Horus. Also, he is the son of the sky goddess Nut, and the spouse and sister

of a sky goddess Isis, whose association with a kite or hawk identifies her as a celestial deity. The

importance of Orion as a celestial visible metaphor for Osiris is developed later in this chapter.

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Perhaps what the multiple and sometimes conflicting beliefs about the afterlife of the king in the

Pyramid Texts demonstrate is the amalgamation of a variety of doctrines taken from a number of

Predynastic religions. Suggesting that Osirian beliefs existed in the Predynastic is dangerous ground,

for there does not seem to be any empirical evidence for the existence of Osiris prior to the Old

Kingdom. Also problematic is his anthropomorphism, for historic iconography depicts Osiris as a

purely anthropomorphic deity. As discussed in Chapter 4, it has been argued that Egyptian

anthropomorphism is an historic development and that Predynastic deities were conceived primarily

in animal form (Hornung 1983: 100-142).

Some convincing arguments associate Osiris with theriomorphic Predynastic images. Griffiths (1980)

extracted the many jackal references to Osiris from the Pyramid Texts (Hornung 1983: 143-146; Pyr,

2097-2098, 2103, 2108) to support his theory that Osiris "may have been originally a jackal-god in the

necropolis of Abydos" (Hornung 1983: 105). Later Osiris merged with Khenthamenthis (ibid 106), a

jackal god, whose name means "Foremost of the Westerners", a name commonly applied to Osiris.

Westendorf (1977: 105-6) picked out the passages in the Pyramid Texts describing Osiris, the king,

as a fabulous beast with the head of a jackal and the body of "the celestial serpent" (Pyr. 1564, 1749,

1995, 2128). This composite creature with a panther's body, he argued, is the same as the snake-

necked creatures on the Narmer (Fig. 4.5) and Hierakonpolis "animal" palettes and is the Predynastic

depiction of Osiris as the dead king (Westendorf 1977: 106).

Another theory times Osiris' association with Khenthamenthis to his introduction into the mortuary cult

at Abydos (Otto 1968: 13). The Abydos Predynastic necropolis, originally protected by the jackal god

Khenthamenthis, became important when Abydos became the royal necropolis of Upper Egypt

around the end of the 4th millennium BCE (ibid 13, 20-22). Osiris, Otto claimed, was the third factor

in the complex beliefs and rituals practised here and united "the royal burial rites and the associated

cult temple of Khenthamenthes" (ibid 22-24). He placed the merging of Osiris and Khenthamenthis in

the sixth Dynasty (ibid 22), at the time of the Pyramid Texts, not during the Predynastic as did

Griffiths. The only Predynastic representation of Osiris that Otto could find is perhaps the ritual

53 Faulkner (1973: 255 n.17) comments that the word for emmer also means 'barley of Lower Egypt', it mh.

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placement of grain in the graves – a practice common during the historic period to symbolise the

rebirth of Osiris and hence the deceased (ibid 25). Otto stopped short of assigning any image to a

Predynastic Osiris, but the commonly held opinion prevails that Predynastic deities took animal forms

and that anthropomorphism was an historical development.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC DEITIES IN THE PREDYNASTIC?

Eric Hornung, possibly the best known of Egyptologists specialising in mythology and religious beliefs,

emphasised the absence of anthropomorphism in the Predynastic: "... in late Predynastic times the

powers that determine the course of events were mostly conceived in animal form" (Hornung 1983:

105). He took an "evolutionary" view of the development of Egyptian religion from Predynastic to

Dynastic, claiming that "man (sic) ... achieved a new self-awareness... no longer feeling himself to be

the plaything of incomprehensible powers. [Subsequently] their [the deities'] original animal or

inanimate form changed into a human one" (ibid 105).

Hornung called on the many examples of Early Dynastic animal art originating from the Predynastic

to support his conclusions: the Narmer palette cow goddess, the standards supporting bird and

animal forms, as well as unidentifiable inanimate objects (ibid 103-107) (Figs. 4.5, 4.6, 4.9). These

images most frequently have been understood as early animal forms of the Dynastic therianthropic

deities, Hathor, Thoth, Anubis, and the falcon-god Horus. With the exception of the human face of

the cow goddess on the Narmer palette, which he understood to be transitional (ibid 105), he

concluded: "There is, therefore, no certain evidence for the worship of anthropomorphic deities in

Predynastic Egypt" (ibid 102-3).

The most obvious challenge to Hornung's conclusion comes from the abundance of purely

anthropomorphic Predynastic figurines plus the inclusion of the therianthropic ones with bird and

animal heads, but Hornung rejected these figurines as possible deities solely on the arguments

presented by Peter Ucko in his major work (Ucko 1968). Ucko's conclusion that the Egyptian as well

as the Near Eastern Neolithic and Chalcolithic figurines do not represent deities is based on his

assessment that they do not look like deities and also that similar contemporary, mostly African,

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societies use figurines for purposes other than icons of the divine. Therefore, the Egyptian figurines

cannot qualify as anthropomorphic images of deities. Hornung summed up Ucko's argument in one

page (Hornung 1983: 102), without any analysis of Ucko's position. Hornung simply took Ucko's

position as the truth and as substantial enough evidence to dismiss the figurines without further

discussion. The impact of New Archaeology on the interpretation of prehistoric religion eliminated the

figurines from the discussion. With regard to Ucko's criteria that an image of a deity must be

ornamented in a distinguishing way, Hornung and others do not question why unornamented

Predynastic falcon and baboon figurines suggest Horus and Thoth respectively, while an

unornamented anthropomorphic figurine cannot represent a deity.

In discussing the relationship of these animal figurines to the deities they represent, Hornung claimed

that each is not an image of a god as such, but the b3 of a deity, "the visible manifestation of an

invisible power" (1983: 138). Referring to the historic period, he continued that sometimes this

invisible power is conceived of anthropomorphically – human beings are the "likeness of god" (ibid),

particularly the king. The "wind is the ba of the [anthropomorphic but invisible] air god Shu and the

visible sun is the ba of the [anthropomorphic but invisible] sun god" as Re or Amun-Re (ibid).

Although Hornung confined this analysis to the historic period, only our preoccupation with the animal

imagery of the Predynastic prevents us from assigning the same analysis to prehistoric conceptions

cf deity. The Nuer and Dinka people, with a plethora of animal spirits and totems, conceive of many

deities anthropomorphically, but identify natural phenomena, such as the wind, the river, the rain, a

tree, a crow, or the spread of ox horns, as the expressions of a deity's presence in the world. In a

similar way, the Dynastic Egyptians saw Re in the sun, Isis in a star, Hapy in the Nile, Shu as air,

Tefnut as moisture, Nut as sky, and Geb as earth, but mentally conceived of these deities

anthropomorphically. It is not clear why the Predynastic Egyptians could not have thought this way as

well, and used animal motifs, as well as therianthropic figurines, to represent the b3(s) of

anthropomorphically conceived deities. Stretching speculation beyond evidence, we can postulate

that they were "bolder" than contemporary Sudanese people and used anthropomorphic figurines to

represent the more accessible, mediating entities of the spirit world. The Sudanese material,

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however, can only suggest, not prove, that the Predynastic therianthropic images express more

accessible, anthropomorphically conceived deities through their bird and animal associations.

More solid evidence for anthropomorphic Predynastic deities comes from other Predynastic images:

anthropomorphic representations on Predynastic Nagada II and III decorated ware (Fig. 2.7). The

most startling are the female figures with large round heads and upraised arms. Other human

figurines include males, possibly ithyphallic, and other females with round heads, some who seem

more important because of their large size. Males with raised arms appear on Nagada I Cross-lined

pots (Figs, 3.2 a,b) and on the Nagada 11 rock paintings illustrated in Winkler (1938a: Plates XXII.1,

XIV, XV.2), and could have divine meanings.

A recent discussion of the pot imagery by another prominent Egyptologist, J. Gwyn Griffiths (1996:

11-16), implicitly challenged Hornung's conclusions about the lack of evidence of Predynastic

anthropomorphic deities. More in keeping with older interpretations of Predynastic female

iconography, Griffiths concluded that the female figure with upraised arms and the larger female

figures are goddesses (ibid 13) (Fig. 2.7). Where the figures appear in groups of three on the vases,

Griffiths argued in favour of a "divine triad" (ibid 15), in which the "goddess in the triad is probably an

early form of Hathor" (ibid). He based his conclusion on the presence of a standard depicting cow

horns in conjunction with a falcon. The falcon represents Horus and the cow horns must therefore

indicate Hathor, the original mother of Horus (ibid). The crook in the left hand of the male in the triad,

he pointed out, could indicate the "eventual insignia of the dynastic Pharaoh and of Osiris" (ibid). He

further suggested that the leading male figure is the "Horus chieftain" (ibid) and, while he did not

specifically mention the Osirian triad (Osiris as father; Horus as son; Hathor, in this instance, as

mother), Osiris as a possibility lurks in the background. Hornung did not consider these images at all.

Thus, on the one hand a prominent, influential scholar of Egyptian mythology, Eric Hornung, denies

the existence of anthropomorphic deities in the Predynastic, while on the other, another Egyptologist,

of the same stature, J. Gwyn Griffiths, supports the presence of anthropomorphism. Both refer to

material evidence as confirmation. It is, however, notable that Griffiths did not include the

Predynastic figurines in his discussion, despite the presence of 37 female figurines with upraised

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arms and falcon or hawk associations in their heads with large curved beaks, and with obvious

similarities to the D-ware figures.

The exclusion of this category of iconography from the interpretation of Predynastic deities allowed

Hornung to arrive at the conclusion that neither anthropomorphic nor therianthropic deities existed in

the Predynastic (Hornung 1983: 109). Thus, to Hornung, the familiar animal-headed, human-bodied

iconography from the Dynastic period must have developed during the Dynastic: "Toward the end of

the Second Dynasty the first gods in human form with animal heads ... appear on cylinder seal

impressions of King Peribsen" (ibid 109). Hornung's position, in light of the symbols displayed by the

figurines, seems incomplete. If the Predynastic grave figurines as anthropomorphic or therianthropic

deities or spirits can be reintroduced into the discussion of the nature of Predynastic mortuary beliefs,

then a reassessment of the possible role of an anthropomorphically conceived Osiris can also be

considered.

THE FIGURINES AND THE OSIRIAN CULT: WHAT CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE?

Without question, at least a few of the Predynastic Upper Egyptians used anthropomorphic figurines

in their mortuary rituals. Of course, the ones we have access to are only those which survived up to

6000 years of interment. Not only time and the elements, but also grave robbers and early amateur

archaeologists reduced the actual number.

In addition, we can only surmise that the Predynastic Upper Egyptians used a variety of more

perishable materials besides unfired clay, such as wood, reeds, fabrics, other plant materials, and

animal products such as leather. Of course we cannot assume that perishable materials were more

readily used than durable ones, as the Egyptians were noted for their preoccupation with physical

immortality, and this they could have extended to their choice of materials. However, the survival of

some unfired clay and mud figurines cautions against drawing hard conclusions based on material

evidence alone, for the archaeological record is probably far from comprehensive or complete.

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The problem with a non-literate extinct culture is that we can only begin to know it through its material

remains. The incorporation of the scientific method into archaeology (New or Processual

Archaeology) led to the assumed authority of the material culture and a resistance to interpretations

unsubstantiated by material evidence. This attitude led Peter Ucko to assess the figurines largely on

the basis of their material characteristics, that is, their findspots and physical attributes. Artefacts

representing divinity should, therefore, be found in "divine" locations, such as shrines and temples,

arid must possess "divine" attributes, such as headdresses and evidence of preciousness in material

arid execution. In other words, they should conform to some notion of what is worthy to be treated as

divine. Their divinity should be recognisable in the material record, otherwise no such attribution can

be made.

This emphasis on material evidence led to the conclusion that some of the most important deities

from the Egyptian pantheon had an historic origin and were not present in the Predynastic religion.

The Predynastic existence of Horus is accepted, based on the existence of falcon imagery which can

be directly connected to the historic imagery of Horus, such as early pot marks depicting serekhs

surmounted by a falcon, falcon standards on pots and palettes, and bird amulets found in graves.

Deciding which Predynastic image is Horus and which another falcon deity is problematic, because of

the number of historic falcon-headed deities 54 , but the associations with symbols of kingship, such as

those on the Narmer palette (Fig. 4.5) and on serekhs (Fig. 4.8), are assumed to demonstrate the

prehistoric existence of Horus, symbol of divinity in the form of kingship. 55 However, when it comes

to the divinities associated with the historic mortuary cult, especially Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, such a

direct connection cannot be maintained. No symbols of Osiris earlier than a First Dynasty djed pillar,

a column resembling a stylised sheaf of grain or series of vertebrae, have been found, and even this

slim evidence was questioned by Griffiths (1980: 41), who claimed that the symbol was not

associated exclusively with Osiris until the New Kingdom. The djed pillar possibly became associated

with Osiris later than the First Dynasty, as was Andjety, a Lower Egyptian king. Osiris does not

appear unequivocally until the Pyramid Texts of the late Fifth Dynasty.

54 For example, see Neugebauer and Parker (1969, PLS. 1,3,5) for illustrations of the deities of the Northern Sky and the Decans.Many falcon-headed deities are included among them.

5! See Arnett (1982) for illustrations and discussion of Predynastic imagery, including falcon and hawk imagery, preceding thedevelopment of hieroglyphs.

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Based on material evidence alone, Osiris appears to be an historic deity. Despite J. Gwyn Griffiths'

(1980) argument for the origin of Osiris as a jackal god of Abydos, based on extracts from the

Pyramid Texts (ibid 105ff), the connection of Osiris with a jackal, or any deified animal, is not part of

the accepted theory on the origins of Osiris. The tendency to reject such hypothetical conclusions

demonstrates New Archaeology and the scientific method at work — the legacy of the 1960s and

1970s. The scientific method requires hard evidence to support theories, and until recently, such

"hard evidence" had to take the form of material remains.

A more interpretative position, as encouraged by the methodology and philosophy of post-processual

archaeology, can bring other evidence to the discussion. In the absence of any contemporary

descendants of Egyptian culture, we can draw material from comparative religion, ethnography,

historical records, and environmental factors. While Chapter 4 examined the available ethnography

on Sudanese religions in an attempt to illuminate possible religious conceptions of the Predynastic

Egyptians not evidenced in the material remains, the following discussion draws from contemporary

comparative knowledge of ancient religion and the natural environment experienced by the

Predynastic Upper Egyptians. Such less tangible evidence can demonstrate the possibility of the

existence of Osiris prior to the Pyramid Texts, where material evidence cannot. If a convincing claim

can be made for mortuary beliefs focusing on an Osiris-like deity, then perhaps some of the

iconography found in a mortuary context can be applied to his cult. It would be unlikely, however,

that this iconography represented supreme or cosmic deities, for reasons discussed in Chapter 4 and

summarised below, and from the implications of a brief, wide-ranging exploration of this issue in

comparative religion.

THE INVISIBLE GOD

Iconography and Divinity

One assumption underlying the attempts to locate material evidence for the existence of the

Predynastic mortuary deities is that cultures tend to embody their deities in physical form, creating

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animal or human iconography upon which to focus their ritual. No doubt, the ancient and possibly

prehistoric images have been used for such religious purposes, understood by some commentators

as "idolatrous". The rich iconography of the polytheistic cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, and

India seems to confirm an ancient and prehistoric pre-occupation with iconography and symbolic

representation.

Statues of deities inhabited the naos of every ancient temple and shrine. Even if no material

evidence can be found, as in the case of Mesopotamia (Lloyd 1975: 111), texts and illustrations

describe and portray the daily ritual of bathing, dressing, and feeding the deity, plus the seasonal

public festival parades of the statues on their way to visit the resident deities of other temples,

providing a focus of worship for the public, who otherwise had little or no access to the divine images.

Examples of this ritual behaviour can be found in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, and

contemporary India. Such worship and display became the focus of contempt for the Hebrew

tradition, in which Yahweh was far too holy and powerful to deign to be embodied in material form.

"Idolatry" and "iconography" became synonymous in the Hebrew mind, and consequently in the

Christian and Islamic mind as well.

Therefore, I suspect that, besides our emphasis on scientific, empirical evidence, biases inherited

from Christianity influence interpretation. The supreme divinity of Christianity is too holy for

representation, but the "pagans", base in their worship, must have such false and degraded divinities

that they give them a human or animal form. The Predynastic Egyptians, with their ancient, "pagan"

minds, therefore, must also be predisposed to divine iconography, and if such were not present,

particularly in the right places (temples, shrines), then these deities were deemed not to exist until

their appearance in the historic record. To push back the existence of Osiris prior to the Pyramid

Texts, Griffiths felt it necessary to identify an embodiment for him, and only the jackal could be found

with a close enough association - Abydos, the centre of worship of the Predynastic jackal god,

Khenthamenthis, and later, the major centre for the worship of Osiris.

In contrast, even the most cursory examination of the many world religions, past and present, major

or small-scale, refutes any notion that divinity, particularly cosmic or supreme divinity, is always

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embodied in some material form. For the Nuer, their highest divinity, Kwoth Nhial, is only suggested

by the majestic spread of the horns of the ox. The Nuer are very careful to distinguish between a

divine cosmic power which is suggested rather than embodied or represented by the ox horns, and a

lesser power which takes tangible form. Kwoth Nhial is non-locatable – too ubiquitous and too

powerful to be constrained by material form. For the Nuer, only the "spirits of the below", the totems,

and fetishes take on a material aspect. The "spirits of the above" have a remote and omnipresent

quality which cannot be "trapped" within localised and limited forms.

African tribal people, in particular, are loath to embody their higher deities in material form. Despite

the rich iconography of African religion, these icons are invariably representations of ancestors,

spirits, and demons rather than supreme divinities. In fact, John S. Mbiti (1969) in his exposition of

African religions implicitly responded to the common prejudice of African "idol" worship with the

statement, "... no idols have been reported in African traditional societies" (Mbiti 1969: 71). Yet non-

represented deities are often mentally conceived as anthropomorphic and mediated by human agents

such as "priests, rainmakers, elders, diviners, medicine-men, Kings, chiefs and the living dead" (ibid

71).

Examples from other early religions confirm this tendency. The earliest Chinese cultures, such as the

Shang (c1700-1100 BCE), display a fascination with the animal world with their richly designed

bronzes decorated with animal forms, predominantly the animal masks of water buffalo and rams.

Without any written texts, this evidence suggests the worship of divinity in animal form, but the written

records on animal bones indicate differently. The focus of the ritual performed with these decorated

vessels was Shang Ti, the supreme being or perhaps original ancestor. Although no representation

of Shang Ti has been found, early inscriptions indicate that he was mentally conceived in human

form. The scholars of the following Chou period devised a roughly human shape as the written

character for their chief deity, Shang Ti (Fairbank & Reischauer 1989: 17-32). Later figurative

sculptural works depicted guardians or sages, rather than deities, and with the adoption of

Confucianism and its vague notion of divinity which bordered on agnosticism, coupled with the non-

theistic Taoist religion, anthropomorphic deities faded from official religion. Because of this shift in

the Chinese religious "imagination", we cannot know whether, for the purposes of state-religion,

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deities such as Shang Ti would eventually have been given material representation in statues and

other iconography, but the anthropomorphic character of his written name implies that similar iconic

imagery might have followed,

Aside from being too powerful or omnipresent, the cosmic deities are often conceived as being too

remote to warrant representation. In the case of Sumerian Mesopotamia, among the most frequently

represented deities on cylinder seals are Inanna and Enki. Both are far from supreme, but both take

an active role in the activities of humankind. Inanna (later as Ishtar) performs an annual sacred

marriage with the king in order to ensure agricultural fecundity. Enki is famous for his interventions

on behalf of humankind when a higher god, Enlil, threatens to destroy it. But the most supreme deity

of all, An, is rarely depicted, rarely petitioned, and features in myths infrequently.56

To expand this tendency further, I would like to draw attention to the Hindu Tantric mythology of

Shiva and Shakti, particularly since a parallel can be made between the relationship of the god Shiva

to the goddess Shakti and the relationship of Osiris to Isis. Like Osiris and Isis, Shiva and Shakti

unite in a sacred marriage. Osiris and Shiva are both passive, dead gods, while Isis and Shakti

represent the active female principle.

In the Tantric system, the ultimate, unmanifest, neuter godhead, Brahman, manifests as the Bindu, or

primordial seed, from which the whole universe is born. Like the yin/yang symbol of Chinese

philosophy, the Bindu contains the essence of the complementary opposites, male and female.

When the Bindu "sprouts", the male aspect, personified as Shiva, resides with Brahman, while the

female aspect, Shakti, engages in the activity of creating the universe and the "ten thousand things".

Meanwhile, Shiva remains as though dead, and is represented as a corpse in some iconography.

Inactive and powerless, he rests inert, awaiting the return of Shakti when she finishes her creative

task. When she returns to Shiva, there is great joy and rejoicing; the ultimate union takes place; the

universe dissolves into its primordial unity; and then the whole process starts up again.57

56 For accounts and discussions of Mesopotamian myths, see especially Jacobsen (1976) and Kramer (1961 b).

67 For a discussion of the relationship of Shiva and Shakti in the Hindu Tantric tradition, see, for example, Beck (1993: 121-147);Avalon (1972: xix-xxxi; 1974: 25-48); Mahadevan (1960: 203-215). In the Tantric tradition, Shiva is an otiose deity, in contrast tomainstream Hindu tradition, where he is best known for his extremely active role as a dancer.

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The prehistoric iconography of the Indus Valley Civilisation (c2600 BCE) indicates the possible

existence of the Tantric system at that time. 58 Small clay female figurines have been found

throughout the cities, towns, and villages and suggest the early worship of a Shakti-like deity, who

represents the creative powers of nature. 59 The male aspect finds representation mainly in the form

of a phallus - a form which characterised Shiva until much later in Indian history when he took an

anthropomorphic form as well. Only on three stamp seals do we find an image that can be

interpreted as an early anthropomorphic depiction of Shiva as an ascetic deity performing yogic

disciplines, and this evidence is far from conclusive (Fairservis 1992: 63).

For the Neolithic village culture prior to the rise of the Indus Valley Civilisation, limited iconographic

evidence of a male deity has emerged, whereas female figurines, which appear stylistically to be

related to the Indus Valley and later historic figurines, are plentiful. Not until India approached the

Christian Era did anthropomorphic images of high male deities appear, and these in temples,

sculptural complexes, and caves, rather than the domestic environment. Anthropomorphically

conceived cosmogonic deities older than writing - Surya, Rudra, lndra, Vishnu, Brahma - finally found

material expression. Even the Buddha, representative of the empty essence of the phenomenal

world and founder of a non-theistic religion, became the anthropomorphic focus of Buddhism,

contradicting the basic philosophy of the religion. This evidence suggests a tendency towards historic

anthropomorphic representation of prehistoric, non-represented, anthropomorphic male high gods.

The relationship of the active goddess to the inert god in both Egyptian and Indian mythology startles

with its many similarities. The emphasis on the erect but stationary phallus, the active creative role of

the female, the dead or inert male aspect, and the divine marriage, or hierosgamos, are four major

conjunctions. As well, in both India and Egypt, anthropomorphic Shiva and Osiris iconography only

convincingly occurs in the historic periods. Rather, female imagery dominates the prehistoric

iconographic record in all European and Near and Middle Eastern countries, and this dominance has

led to the assumption that humanity first conceived high divinity as female. Dominant male deities, it

58 For details on Indus Valley iconography, see, for example, Agrawal (1984) and Allchin and Alchin (1968).

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is postulated, arrived later, with the rise of state enforced patriarchy. These same claims have been

made about Predynastic Egypt (Baumgartel 1970b; David 1982; Hassan 1992; Hornblower 1929;

Murray 1934) because of the preponderance of female iconography over male.

A more detailed and comprehensive study could be made of the nature of iconographic

representation of various kinds of deities in other contemporary religious systems. Certainly many

exceptions can be found to the general tendency illustrated above. Higher, cosmic male and female

deities do enter the iconic record in small scale religions of the Pacific Islands and some North

American Inuit and Indian cultures, alongside "lesser" divinities such as ancestors, spirit guides,

totems, demons, etc. The Inuit goddess Sedna, often carved in soapstone, and the Mississippi Earth

Mother, modelled in clay (Prentice 1986) are good examples, although I could argue that these

"higher" female deities fall within the immanent and accessible rather than remote, cosmogonic

category. Despite the occasional exception, the religious sensibility of many small-scale forager and

village societies shies away from confining cosmic spiritual entities in localised, limiting material

forms. Purely anthropomorphic forms are particularly avoided, even though worshippers might

mentally conceive these deities in human terms and approach them, through mediation, as superior

human-like beings. Only in centralised, state-based religions does iconography of higher deities tend

to become important, as in the case of the sedentary, centrally-ruled Shilluk culture of the Sudan.

The following section applies these observations to specific Egyptian deities, especially Osiris.

Osiris: An Invisible God?

To find Osiris in the Predynastic is like finding an invisible needle in a haystack. If Osiris, a major

mortuary deity of Upper Egypt at Abydos, qualifies as a "cosmic", or higher, deity, hence prone to lack

of representation, then arguments must be based on something more nebulous and slippery than the

surety of material remains.

59 See Banerji (1994) for illustrations and a concise description and analysis of Indian terracotta figurines. The Indian goddess Shaktiand her various manifestations could be the only "Mother Goddess" easily traced through iconography to prehistoric roots.

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The Predynastic Egyptians, like the Nuer, Dinka, Chinese, and Indian peoples, among others,

probably conceived of deities in anthropomorphic terms without expressing them through material

images, but we cannot prove this. Comparative evidence suggests the likelihood, reinforced by the

historic emergence of anthropomorphically represented deities such as Osiris, Ptah, Atum, Nut, Geb,

Nephthys, Min, and Hapy, and some forms of Hathor, Isis, and later, Amun. To deny the possibility of

their pre-literate, pre-state existence is to postulate their invention by priests, rather than their gradual

development out of the religious needs and conceptions of the people.

Eric Hornung (1983), in his study of the nature of Egyptian deities, stressed the invisible nature of the

Egyptian gods: "their true form is 'hidden' and 'mysterious', as Egyptian texts emphasize continually"

(ibid 117):60

A god may be sensed and seen not only in his attributesof fragrance, radiance and power, but also and moreforcefully in the way he affects men's hearts ... In thesecases the invisible god may be grasped as a subjectivereality, whereas he can be made visible to the believeronly in images ... (ibid 134-5)

As discussed above in the section on comparative religion, the need for deities to be visible to the

believers arises when the priests and rulers of an institutionalised religion wish to focus the support

and allegiance of the wider community on a unified and centralised authority. Non-centralised

cultures, such as the village cultures of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic, had little need to embody their

deities in official statues, for their worship would often be conducted in small village gatherings or

home shrines, as in today's tribal Africa. Even in modern rural India, people still prefer home worship

to temple worship, despite the prevalence of temples in their communities.61

Because of the belief in the "invisibility" of the major deities and the need to make these deities

tangible to the Egyptian population, the priests created a representation which combined and

reconciled these two conflicting concepts. They placed the anthropomorphic image within a dark

sanctuary and restricted access only to those officiating priests who looked after it (ibid 135). Even

during public processions, they retained the concept of "invisibility" by concealing the image in a

60 It seems contradictory that he would not extend the same attitude to the Predynastic Egyptians.

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shrine, which was paraded before the public. The general population knew the statue was there and

could focus their worship on it, but it remained invisible, hidden in its portable shrine (ibid 136; Baines

1991: 148).

The embodiment of cosmic divine power is dangerous, hence the reluctance to create and display

imagery of the most powerful divine forces. Embodied deities in Dynastic Egypt, as elsewhere, were

surrounded by the limiting controlling factors of ritual, special priesthoods, sanctuaries, and

inaccessibility. In a less complex culture, to simply not embody cosmic forces would protect the

people from their dangerous intrusion. Tradition, handed down orally, and rituals practised by

succeeding generations of shamans, priests, and prophets, as in Nuer and Dinka culture, sustain the

knowledge of the deities and their powers and provide the necessary focus for communal worship and

continuance of tradition.

To assume that such a powerful deity as Osiris, a cosmic divinity of the sky and the underworld,

rather than temporal deity of the earth or air, could not have existed in the Predynastic because of a

lack of material evidence contradicts the nature of religious iconography. For priests to invent a

powerful and popular deity such as Osiris for the purposes of a royal mortuary cult early in the

Dynastic period, just prior to the written evidence of the Pyramid Texts, would be an incredible feat of

propaganda in a period without mass communication in which only the elite were literate. Also, such

a self-conscious, contrived form of religious development is unlikely considering the conservative

nature of religion, especially that of Egypt, the widespread popularity of Osiris among illiterate people

after the First Intermediate period, and the inherent contradictions among the myths and textual

references to him. If one or two organised centralised priesthoods had invented Osiris, for whatever

purpose, surely there would be greater consistency and uniformity in the religious texts.

The Pyramid Texts display characteristics which can be more sensibly explained to result from a

collection of pre-existing creation and cosmological myths, as well as spells and myths surrounding

the death and rebirth of the king, rather than newly invented theologies, cosmologies, and

cosmogonies. These texts contain plural, rather than singular, accounts of creation, eschatology, and

61 For a discussion of contemporary popular religion in India, see Fuller (1992).

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cosmic organisation and principles. Furthermore, accrediting the early historic period with the original

development of texts, deities, and mortuary rituals is to presuppose that either: (1) the Predynastic

mortuary rituals and accompanying deities and beliefs ceased and new systems and deities came into

existence with the rise of the unified state; or (2) the Predynastic peoples had no set of beliefs, rituals

and deities which accompanied the elaborate mortuary material remains and, therefore, suitable ones

had to be invented.

Neither of these options is plausible. More likely, the earliest mortuary deities, rituals, and beliefs of

the historic period descended from the mortuary cultures of the Predynastic. As elsewhere in Africa,

those responsible for the institution of Divine Kingship probably "took over" pre-existing popular cults

in order to focus, legitimate, and stabilise power. Perhaps they did not conceive of these deities in

exactly the same terms or assign them their Predynastic names. We know that deities, even in the

historic period, merged or altered their identities. The historic confluence of deities helps to diffuse

any argument that their prehistoric counterparts retained their identical names and functions as they

moved into their well-recognised positions under the efforts of the Dynastic priests and theologians.

Hathor and Isis became indistinguishable iconographically and only identifiable by the presence of

their hieroglyphs. Amun and Re merged into Amun-Re. Hathor appears to have been the original

mother of Horus, leaving open the question as to the origin of Isis and why she took over that

position. Sopdet (Greek Sothis), possibly Satis, and Isis - three distinct deities - each became

associated with the star Sirius. Osiris, named Wsir, is historically identified with the constellation

Orion, called Sah (S3) (Faulkner 1966: 157; Neugebauer & Parker 1969: 112-115), possibly in much

the same way as Re is symbolised by the celestial body of the sun as Aten.

In Egyptian mythology, the heavenly bodies rather than earthly beings embody the natures of cosmic

deities. Egypt's cosmic deities, such as Atum, Amun, Shu, Tefnut, and Nut, are invisible to the eye,

but their presence is demonstrated by the elemental forces they embody: the ability to create (Amun,

Atum), the air (Shu), moisture (Tefnut), and the sky (Nut). These cosmogonic deities avoid direct

involvement with humanity, except through priests, and instead concern themselves with the more

remote activities of creation and maintenance of the universe. Like the invisible Kwoth Nhial, Atum

and Amun are mentally conceived anthropomorphically as fathers (Pyr. 151), but the Egyptian gods

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are not depicted as such until the development of official tomb wall iconography. Even Geb,

although the earth god, is cosmogonic and primordial rather than involved in human affairs. Each of

these deities, including Osiris, takes on an anthropomorphic representation with the formulation of

official state religion and iconography. None appears to have been represented iconically in the

Predynastic.

In the Pyramid Texts, the physical sun represents Re. Possibly such an implicit relationship between

Osiris and Orion exists as well, although Sah is not mentioned. Osiris, as a cosmic deity, could have

fcund his earliest expression in the evocative presence of Orion in the celestial rather than earthly

realm, in much the same way as the spread of ox horns evokes Kwoth Nhial to the Nuer.

The gods of human affairs, the temporal gods, Horus, Hathor, Isis, Thoth, Anubis, Nekhbet, Wadjt,

Sekhmet, among others, directly involve themselves in the political and personal lives of the people

who worship them. Like the totemic spirits and the "spirits of the below" of the Nuer people, they find

immanent expression in familiar animals and objects of the terrestrial world. These immanent deities

who border the celestial and earthly realms often have wings, enabling them to inhabit both earth and

sky, for example, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, and Thoth, in his ibis form. Also the b3, that aspect of the

human soul which flies out of the tomb, does so as a human-headed, swallow-like bird.

References to the king with wings of many different birds - goose, duck, falcon, heron - appear in the

Pyramid Texts (Pyr. 461-463, 250, 387-79). The wings enable the king to fly up to the stars and

become immortal. In the Pyramid Texts, the king flies up to the sky as a swallow (Pyr. 1770, 1216),

the image most closely related to the concept of the b3 bird, and takes his place among the other

swallows, which become the Imperishable Stars (Pyr. 1216). So too, the Nuer lesser spirits of the

above, such as the Kwoth cuekni (twins) spirits and Buk, as a female crow, have bird associations

which allow them dual roles as spirits of the earth and the sky. Buk as a crow is also a river spirit -

both celestial and chthonic. Horus, as falcon, rules the earth, but with the power and authority of the

sky.

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Osiris, as a cosmic deity, remote from earthly life, cannot act directly in the world. But, like the

ancestor spirits of many cultures, removed from human activity, he is still responsible for earthly

fertility. Osiris acts indirectly, so he needs a medium to engage with the world of the living. That

medium is Isis, a winged deity of celestial and earthly capabilities. Through Isis, Osiris fathers the

king (Horus) from the other world, the realm of the "ancestors". The Pyramid Texts indicate that in

her cosmogonic form of Sothis, Isis engenders Horus (Pyr. 632-33, 1636), but in more frequent

references to her, she is a kite, attendant at Osiris' funeral. In Dynastic iconography, she hovers

over Osiris' phallus in her bird, rather than anthropomorphic, form. Her wings make possible her

mediation between the two realms.

Osiris, as an invisible celestial cosmic god, and the other cosmic deities, would attract no symbolic

material expression in the Predynastic other than their cosmogonic forms of elements, phenomena,

celestial bodies, and constellations. In the art and iconography of the Dynastic period, their mental

rather than symbolic forms become their representations. Nut, Geb, Tefnut, Shu, Amun-Re, Isis, and

Osiris all take anthropomorphic forms, while simultaneously retaining their celestial/cosmogonic

associations with the sky, earth, moisture, air, sun, Sothis, and Orion respectively, although the

occasional exception can be found, for example, with the late appearance of a ram-headed Amun-Re.

Although I emphasise the evidence that characterises Osiris as a cosmic god with celestial

connotations, I cannot deny that contrary evidence can be found. As the Predynastic community

consisted of a collection of disparate cultures which grouped around the Nile, understandably they

would come to share some religious beliefs and customs, but not all. To identify Orion as a form of

Osiris does not preclude the possibility that some Predynastic peoples envisaged their god of the

dead in the form of a jackal or a fabulous beast, as suggested by certain passages in the Pyramid

Texts (Griffiths 1980, Westendorf 1977). Even the basically anthropomorphic shape of Orion does

not exclude the possibility that his head may have been conceived in jackal rather than human shape

(Eaton-Krauss 1987: 235). References in the Pyramid Texts describe the deceased king's face as

that of a jackal (Pyr. 1235, 1299, 2026-7, 2108, 2241); in one passage he even has the face of Seth

(Pyr. 1935).

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More specific references to Osiris as Orion are, however, in anthropomorphic terms. In Pyr. 18 the k3

of the king is described as a man in full stride, arms swinging, suggesting the shape of Orion. Pyr.

364 describes Osiris anthropomorphically through direct references to his arms and legs. More

specifically in Pyr. 959, Osiris as Orion, "long of leg and lengthy of stride" presides over Upper Egypt.

A more ecumenical declaration covers a number of options:

... O King ... you having appeared to them as ajackal, as Horus ... as Geb, ... and as Osiris ...(Pyr. 2103-4)

This last reference allows us to include many forms for the conception of the dead king and Osiris.

However, the jackal form and composite forms of jackal, snake, and panther (Westendorf 1977: 105)

are absorbed into an anthropomorphic Osiris. These animal associations do not cling to him as the

non-human forms of other deities cling to them throughout the Dynastic period. Rather, the

anthropomorphic form, as suggested by Orion, comes to represent Osiris, both in his role of judge of

the dead and Decanal deity (Neugebauer & Parker 1960, 1969).62

The persistence of the anthropomorphic form over other allusions supports the option for an

anthropomorphically conceived, but invisible, Predynastic Osiris, who may have found his most

popular and widespread representation in Orion. The following discussion details the relationship

between Orion and Osiris in the Pyramid Texts and the importance of Orion to the Predynastic Nile

dwellers of Upper Egypt.

Orion and Osiris

In the Dynastic period, the association of Osiris with Orion was fixed. Isis was associated with Sothis

(Sirius), the star which appeared with the rising sun at the Egyptian New Year, indicating the imminent

inundation of the Nile. How far back these deities and constellations shared their identities is

impossible to gauge.

62 Repeatedly I see a reference to the shape of the constellation Orion in the conventional shape of Dynastic royal iconography —squared shoulders and characteristic kilt, the shape of which parallels the shoulders from front or side view.

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The Pyramid Texts mention the relationship between Isis and Sirius as Sothis in conjunction with the

impregnation of Isis as Sothis by Osiris (Pyr. 632-3, 1635-7) and the birth of Horus-Sopd:

Your sister Isis comes to you rejoicing for love of you.You have placed her on your phallus and your seedissues into her, she being ready as Sothis, and Har-Sopdhas come forth from you as Horus who is in Sothis.(Pyr. 632-3)

Repeatedly, however, Sothis is part of the Re religion as the sister of the king. Pyr. 2126 parallels the

king and Re, with Orion as brother and Sothis as sister. In one instance, Sothis is the mother of the

king (Pyr. 458). In others Orion, as father of the gods, is also father of the king as a god (Pyr. 408,

2180). The king, Orion, and Sothis relationships of these passages mirror the Horus, Osiris, and Isis

relationships and may be a symbolic version of this triad. But, Orion and Osiris occur together only

occasionally. For this reason, and because of the lack of material evidence, the Osiris-Orion

connection has been assumed to be a Dynastic development.

In Pyr. 819-20, a rare clear connection is made: "Behold, he has come as Orion, behold, Osiris has

come as Orion". Yet other passages distinguish between Orion and Osiris (Pyr. 882-3):

O King, you are this great star, the companion ofOrion, who traverses the sky with Orion, whonavigates the Netherworld with Osiris ...

As discussed earlier, this apparent differentiation could be due to two aspects of Osiris/Orion: one

aspect which is visible in the night sky as Orion, the other aspect in which Orion disappears in the

west and traverses the Underworld as Osiris before appearing in the east. Further in Pyr. 820-22,

Orion appears to be a guide or companion to the dead king, rather than his b3 or k363:

63 My impression from the Pyramid Texts is that the b3 is the swallow-like part of the soul which, as a Lone Star, takes its placeamong the Imperishable Stars, while the k3 or double may be modelled on Orion as an anthropomorphic shape:

O King, the arm of your double is in front of you!0 King, the arm of your double is behind you!0 King, the foot of your double is in front of you!0 King, the foot of your double is behind you! (Pyr. 18)

Faulkner comments that this passage may mean that the k3 strides, swinging its arms and legs (Pyr. 18, n. 4), reminding me ofthe striding of Orion over Upper Egypt (Pyr. 959).

255

O King, the sky conceives you with Orion, thedawn-light bears you with Orion. ... You willregularly ascend with Orion from the easternregion of the sky, you will regularly descendwith Orion into the western region of the sky ...

This relationship is supported by other spells in which Orion appears to be a helper, a guide, or an

abode, which protects and assists the dead king on his ascent:

In your name of Dweller in Orion, with a seasonin the sky and a season on earth. 0 Osiris, turnyour face and look on this King ... (Pyr. 186)

May Orion give me his hand, for Sothis has takenmy hand. (Pyr. 1561)

I have gone up upon the ladder with my foot onOrion (Pyr. 1763)

Be young, be young beside your father, besideOrion in the sky. (Pyr. 2180-1)

The ladder of Pyr. 1763 appears elsewhere in the Pyramid Texts as a ladder to the sky (Pyr. 971-80),

and possibly the shape of Orion, to some Predynastic Egyptians, suggested a celestial ladder

connecting heaven and earth, on which the souls of the dead ascend. Another passage refers to a

stairway in association with Orion (Pyr. 1717), perhaps also a description of Orion's shape.

In one anomalous Utterance (Pyr. 722-723), Orion and Osiris oppose each other. Orion is the dead

King, while Osiris represents death and mortality rather than immortality:

O flesh of the King, do not decay, do not rot, donot smell unpleasant. Your foot will not be over-passed, your stride will not be overstridden, youshall not tread on the corruption of Osiris. Youshall reach the sky as Orion, your soul shall be aseffective as Sothis,

The conflicting passages in the Pyramid Texts demonstrate simultaneous myths which equate Osiris

and Orion and myths which do not. Some solar myths in which the king goes to Re or becomes a star

obviously include Orion as a guide or a location in the afterlife, while others exclude Orion from the

solar and stellar myths. Therefore, although Osiris clearly manifests as Orion during the Dynastic

period, contrasting Predynastic mortuary beliefs could also equate Osiris (or a similar deity) and

Orion, while others do not. Despite these contradictions, the following discussion argues for a

256

Predynastic conflation of Orion and Osiris, or similar underworld and vegetation deity, based on the

importance of Orion to the spiritual and, subsequently, material life of the community.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORION TO THE PREDYNASTIC UPPER EGYPTIANS

As mentioned earlier, one brief passage in the Pyramid Texts mentions Orion in connection with the

Osirian resurrection as a "deity" who is "long of leg and lengthy of stride, who presides over Upper

Egypt" (Pyr. 959). Later Dynastic Decanal calendars portray Osiris as Orion just so (Fig. 5.1). 64 In

these Decanal calendars, the New Year begins with the heliacal rising of Sothis (as Isis). The best

examples of the Decanal progression come from New Kingdom tombs, such as that of Seti I (Pyr.

1303-1290 BCE), but the earliest fragments come from the First Intermediate Period tomb of Heny

(Pyr. 2134-1999 BCE). A fragment of Osiris as a Decanal deity has been identified from the Old

Kingdom funerary temple of Djedkare-lsesi (Eaton-Krauss 1987: 234).

Predynastic life in Upper Egypt followed the cycles of the Nile. Sothis brought in the New Year

around the summer solstice, announcing the imminent inundation of the Nile after two months of

'drought", or the lowest level of the river and hence the maximum scarcity of water. This period

followed the March to April period of harvest, the success of which would have depended on the

quality of the previous inundation. Disaster and starvation resulted from either a too high or a too low

inundation, with little hope of recovery until the following year. If the subsequent inundation were also

inadequate, either too much or too little, famine would surely result. Therefore, the Upper Egyptians,

who by at least 4000 BCE relied on regular and ample inundations, apprehensively awaited the

appearance of Sothis. They possibly awaited with even greater concern the appearance of Orion,

since he rose earlier, in May, during the "drought", announcing the imminent appearance of his

sister/wife/helper Sothis in early July, and possibly the star Procyon (Fig. 5.2), a bright "sister" star to

Sothis.

64 For some reason, the Egyptians did not faithfully follow the star formation of the constellation. Neugebauer (1969: 89) cautionsagainst trying to identify empirically any constellation with any particular deity because of the inconsistencies in the star patternsassigned to a variety of representations of the same deity. The star patterns, he suggests, are purely decorative.

257

Orion in 4000 BCE

Computer simulations of the Predynastic night sky

Today, the availability of computer simulations makes the ancient astronomical details and

movements of the planets and constellations easily accessed by people without specialised training in

astronomy. For the purposes of gathering data on the apparent "behaviour" of Orion in 4000 BCE, at

the beginning of the Predynastic, I used two programs: a user-friendly non-specialised program,

SkyGlobe, which simulates the movements of the celestial bodies as far back as 33,000 BCE, and a

more "professional" program, Dance of the Planets, which is specifically designed for both lay and

professional use in education, planetarium displays, and research. Selecting for 26°33' N and 32°30'

E., the latitude and longitude of the Qena bend of Upper Egypt, I mapped the movement of Orion for

the year 4000 BCE, with particular reference to its position at sunrise and sunset. I double checked

this data with Dance and found it confirmed. I chose to use the former program because it offered

orbital simulation of the celestial sphere, whereas the latter simulated the movements of only the

planets, as the title implies.

From the data, I calculated the number of hours of Orion's visibility on the 21st of each month (see

Appendix 2) and plotted the results on Graph I (see ahead). Times have been calculated from the

first rising of the "head" of Orion at sea level to the setting of the last star of his "right shoulder" at sea

level.

It must be kept in mind that the times indicated on the computer simulation of the movement of the

planets and constellations would not be the exact times that the Predynastic or ancient Egyptians

observed the phenomena. The computer times are calculated at sea level. We do not know whether

the Egyptians watched for the appearance of Orion and Sirius from the Nile Valley or from a plateau.

Numerous references in the Pyramid Texts to the appearance of Re, Osiris, and the king from the

Field of Rushes suggest that observations were made from the west bank of the Nile Valley. Pyr.

821-2 specifically mentions the appearance of Orion, under the guidance of Sothis, from the Field of

Rushes.

258

FIG. 5.1 Orion as Osiris and Sothis as Isis on the Decanal Belt

From the Tomb of PedamenopeDynasties )0(V - XXVI ca 560 BCE

259

Also, while the computer program can account for the obscuring effects of twilight, approximately one

hour before actual sunrise and one hour after sunset, it cannot account for atmospheric and climatic

conditions, such as dust and haze (Purrington 1988: S72). As well, whether the risings were observed

from the Valley or plateau, topography could alter the ancient perspective on which stars rose first

(ibid). Therefore, Graph I charts Orion's nocturnal position above the horizon rather than his visibility.

Having been informed by personal communication of the lack of atmospheric haze and the

suddenness of darkness after sunset in Egypt, to compensate for twilight (dawn or dusk), I subtracted

only one hour, but this adjustment perhaps still results in an overestimation of the duration of Orion's

visibility, because it does not account for topographical conditions.

The results of the investigation on the behaviour of Orion in 4000 BCE are illustrated in the celestial

charts, Figs. 5.2 - 5.12, printed out from SkyGlobe. Each chart follows a similar layout, described

below.

Orion is one of 36 constellations in the Ancient Egyptian Decanal Belt, which, in the northern

hemisphere, lies in the southern night sky, south of the ecliptic. Looking at the chart in Fig. 5.2, for

example, the view of the sky is therefore towards the south where Orion, when visible, can be seen.

East is towards the left, west towards the right. The straight horizontal line across the chart

represents the horizon.

Above the horizon are the stars and planets which can be seen at night. Since the chart represents

sunrise on 03 July 4000 BCE, the sun can be seen near the horizon in its summertime position just

north of direct east. The stars and planets below the horizon, of course, cannot be seen, but, as the

earth turns, at night, they gradually appear to rise in the east, travel across the sky towards the west,

and disappear below the western horizon.

The curved line which crosses the horizon represents the ecliptic, the path the sun takes across the

sky. While the Ancient Egyptians recognised the movements of the sun and expressed its perceived

qualities in the sun-god Re, they did not conceive of deities and constellations along the path of the

sun, as did the Babylonians and the Greeks after them. Rather, the Ancient Egyptians perceived their

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sunrise03 July 4000 BCE

Heliacal rising of Sirius(just preceded by Procyon)

261

celestial deities to inhabit two regions, the Decanal belt, which includes Orion and Sothis, and the

group of constellations and stars around the polar centre of the Northern Sky.65

In Fig. 5.2, Orion can be seen just above the horizon, its anthropomorphic outline suggested by the

stars forming the constellation. Just on the horizon, Sirius appears, and since the chart represents

the heliacal rising of Sirius in 4000 BCE, Sirius is therefore rising at the same time as the sun. Just

aoove and to the left of Sirius is Procyon, another bright star, which rises just before Sirius. Although

I have not seen it mentioned, it is possible that Procyon was recognised as a sister star to Sirius and,

therefore, could represent Nephthys. Canopus, below the horizon in Fig. 5.2, is another candidate for

Nephthys, but since it rises much later than Sirius, Procyon is a better candidate.

The celestial charts in Figs. 5.2 - 5.12 follow this pattern. Each displays the southern sky and is

intended to show the movements of Orion. The horizon stretches from east to west in a left to right

straight line bisecting the chart. While many constellations and planets appear on the charts, the

main concern is with the relationship of the sun, Orion, and Sirius. Using these charts, I determine

the cycle of Orion's visibility, that is, when it is most and least visible, how this behaviour relates to

the life and religion of the Predynastic Egyptians, and how the behaviour of Orion fits passages

describing the movements of Osiris in the Pyramid Texts.

Orion and the Pyramid Texts

Sirius/Sothis, the brightest star in the entire sky, announced the imminent inundation, the Nile rising

shortly after her appearance in early July, after the summer solstice (Fig. 5.2). By this time, Orion

would be apparent in the night sky, having been "resurrected" in May or early June with his heliacal

rising (Figs. 5.3a,b). As the first herald of the inundation, he would be "powerless" until Sothis rose:

"Sothis ... who will guide you both [Orion and the king] on the goodly roads which are in the sky and in

the Field of Rushes" (Pyr. 822).

65 See Neugebauer and Parker (1960; 1969) and Ingham (1969) for detailed explanations of Dynastic Egyptian astronomy/astrology.

262

While the first "star" of Orion to rise over the horizon is the group of faint stars which constitutes his

head (Fig. 5.3a), most likely it would not be visible in the bright dawn sky until after at least the rising

of Rigel (Fig. 5.3b), the brightest star of the constellation, and seventh brightest star in the sky. Rigel,

the left thigh of Orion, would be the first star of the constellation to shine in the dawn light during the

period of his heliacal rising. "Mystifying" references to the origination of the inundation from the thigh

of Osiris mentioned by Rundle Clark (1978 <1959>: 130) possibly refer to the rising of Rigel, or the

reference to the thigh could be more mundane as a euphemism for the phallus (ibid 129-30, 161).

Each morning after the first appearance of Rigel, Orion rises earlier than the sun and within a few

days, the sky is dark enough for his head to be the first visible part of him to appear over the horizon.

Numerous references in the Pyramid Texts (654, 735-6, 828, 840, 1675) demonstrate the importance

of the dead king's receiving his head:

Raise yourself, 0 King;receive your head,collect your bones. (Pyr. 654)

O King, raise yourself,receive your head ... (Pyr. 735-6)

By the summer solstice (Fig. 5.4 June 21 sunrise), Orion is fully visible in the eastern sky well before

sunrise. Orion rises piecemeal from the Duat: his head, already up, appears after his thigh. He rises

lying on his right side. According to Rundle Clark, the rising of Osiris on his side is "one of the most

important themes of the Osirian cycle" (Rundle Clark 1978 <1959>: 129), and although the myths

which emphasise such a rising, including numerous references in the Pyramid Texts, antedate the

Predynastic period, they could originate there.

The behaviour of Orion can be summed up as follows:

1. Orion appears in May after an absence of about 2 months, his left thigh appearing first.2. His head appears later.3. He stands up in his zenith, overhead.4. His right side points to the eastern horizon; his left to the west.5. He lies down on his left side as he approaches the western horizon.6. He disappears piecemeal into the earth at the western horizon.

Passages from the Pyramid Texts mirror the behaviour of Orion and the resurrection of the king. I

assume that the Pyramid Texts, as assembled by Kurt Sethe and followed by R.O. Faulkner in his

263

translation (used in this study), do not follow any originally intended order. Therefore, following the

six points above, I have selected and rearranged a number of passages which demonstrate the

pattern of Orion as he ascends and descends with Re, Nephthys, and Isis (Pyr. 209-10), and is

"swallowed up by the Netherworld" as is Sothis and the king (Pyr. 151).

1. Orion rises in the east near the beginning of the year, prior to the inundation after having

spent 70 days in the Netherworld (Figs. 5.3a,b):

Here comes the Dweller in the Abyss ... (Pyr. 1525)

Behold, he has come as Orion, behold, Osiris hascome as Orion ... (Pyr. 819-20)

Osiris appears, the Sceptre is pure, the Lord ofRight is exalted at the First of the Year, (even he)the Lord of the Year. (Pyr. 1520)

2. His head appears after he has risen and his members appear gradually, one by one:

Raise yourself, 0 my father the King, knit on yourhead, gather together your members, lift yourselfup on your feet ... he has crossed the lake, he hastraversed the Netherworld (Pyr. 1675-77)

3. As Orion gets higher in the sky, he appears to stand up (Fig. 5.5):

... they raise Osiris from upon his side and makehim stand up in front of the Two Enneads. (Pyr. 956)

Overhead, he appears to stand and stride across the sky:

... who takes his place at the zenith of the sky, inthe place where you are content. You traverse thesky in your striding ... (Pyr. 854)

4. His right side faces east, pointing to the eastern horizon, the place of resurrection into the

sky. His left side faces the western horizon, the place where he and the stars enter the earth:

You bear up the sky with your right side ... (Pyr. 1528)

You support the earth with your left side ... (Pyr. 1529)

5. As he gradually moves toward the western horizon, he appears to lie down on his side again

as he dies (Fig. 5.12):

The Great One falls upon his side, He who is inNedit quivers ... (Pyr. 721)

264

This Great One has fallen on his side, he who is inNedit is felled. (Pyr. 819)

6. He sets as he rose, bit by bit, gradually disappearing into the western horizon, the Duat:

You sink into the earth to your thickness, to yourmiddle, to your full span ... (Pyr. 285)

Orion is swallowed up by the NetherworldSothis is swallowed up by the NetherworldI am swallowed up by the Netherworld (Pyr. 151)

Orion and the Nile Inundation

Graph 2 plots the annual level of the Nile inundation. It is taken from measurements at Khartoum

over a 24-year period (RzOska 1978:15). Khartoum lies about 1200 kms south of the Qena bend in

Upper Egypt, thus raising the question as to whether the data from Khartoum is relevant to Upper

Egypt. However, the timing of the river's crests and lows varies significantly from year to year,

cresting anywhere between mid-August and mid-September at Aswan. For example, in 1878 the

flood peaked in mid-September and receded more than two months behind schedule (Wetterstrom

1993: 193-4). Therefore, while the flood arrives marginally later the farther north along the Nile it

travels, the variation in the time frame of the annual inundation allows the Khartoum data to apply

generally to the appearance and recession of the annual discharge in Upper Egypt, although the flood

would arrive a week or so later in Upper Egypt than in Khartoum.

At the beginning of the Predynastic66 , Orion rose in late May or early June, a few weeks prior to the

inundation. The Nile inundation began in early July (Graph 2), about the time Sothis appeared.

During late August, at the time of the maximum water level, Orion was overhead at the first dawn

light (Fig. 5.5, Aug 21). The movement of Orion from horizon to zenith paralleled the rise of the Nile

from lowest to maximum (Graph 2). From August until October, the land was flooded, and by late

October, Orion was visible in the night sky from sunset to sunrise (Figs. 5.6, 5.7 Oct 21). Fig. 5.7

indicates that just as the sun was on the western horizon, Orion was positioned to rise in the east and

would appear around the time that twilight faded. Fig. 5.6 demonstrates that just as the sun rose,

Orion set in the west, having been visible all night long. Orion reached its peak hours of visibility in

265

the first week of November (Graph 1) when the Nile had receded enough for the planting season to

begin. Orion's "power" in the sprouting grain brings to mind Osiris' role as grain god, especially of

sprouting barley (Faulkner 1973: Coffin Text 330). The land was at its fertile maximum while Orion

was visible all night. By the time of the Old Kingdom, c2500 BCE, Orion's maximum visibility would

have moved forward approximately three weeks to late November, well into the planting period rather

than at the beginning (Graph 1). Still relevant as a god of sprouting grain, his greater relevancy

remains at the beginning of the Predynastic rather than during the Dynastic period.

Gradually Orion set earlier and earlier in the western sky before sunrise and by Nov 21, 4000 BCE, he

was well below the western horizon by the time the sun rose (Fig. 5.8, Nov 21). His period of visibility

in the night sky became shorter and shorter as he set earlier and earlier before sunrise. Every

morning before sunrise he set four minutes earlier in the west.

Ir, the evening in late November, by the time twilight had faded, Orion was well-risen in the east (Fig.

5 9, Nov 21), having traversed the Underworld starting well before sunrise. Inching his way across

the sky by four minutes per day, by early February, Orion appeared overhead at sunset. More and

more of his time above the eastern horizon was invisible because the sun was still up. Each night his

appearance at sunset would be closer to the West. The Nile inundation was still receding, the harvest

approached, as Orion moved closer and closer to the Western horizon, his period of visibility

shortening day by day.

By March 21, Orion was visible after sunset in the Western sky for approximately two hours (Fig.

5.10, Mar. 21). By April 21, the end of the harvest period and the beginning of the drought, Orion

rose after the sun (Fig. 5.11, Apr. 21) and set with the sun, the acronychal setting, (Fig. 5.12, Apr. 21),

and therefore would not be visible at all in the night sky. During the period of drought, Orion

appeared to have abandoned the world. He no longer presided over the night sky as he did during

the fecund periods of planting, growth, and harvest. During the drought, he was in the Underworld,

the Duat. He had lain down on his left side on the Western Horizon and disappeared bit by bit into

66 Because of the astronomical phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, the data here is relevant only to Predynastic Egypt.Precession slightly advances the rising of stars each year until completion of the 26,000-year cycle.

266

the Underworld. He would not appear, be resurrected, until late May, an absence of approximately

two months, or 70 days. During the Dynastic period, this 70 day period, as the Egyptians reckoned it,

was the length of the embalming period prior to the opening of the mouth ceremony, at which time the

"Osiris" of the deceased was judged and resurrected in the Land of the Westerners (Neugebauer &

Parker 1960: 41, 68,73; Spencer 1982: 113).

Osiris, Orion, the Foreleg and the "Opening of the Mouth"

During the Dynastic period, after the king's body was embalmed and mummified, the sem priest

performed a ceremony which enabled the newly deceased king once again to take nourishment. This

ritual, called the "Opening of the Mouth", was facilitated by the ritual use of an implement. Two

implements appear in the iconography and texts: the pss-kf knife and the mshtyw-nw3 adze.

The pss-kf knife, known from at least Nagada 1 times and found in numerous graves (Roth 1992:

131-32), originated as a delicately knapped flint knife with a divided blade resembling a fish's tail, and

hence was also termed "fishtail knife" (ibid Fig. 4, p. 128). After the First Dynasty, it appeared in an

idealised form, made from various kinds of stone, and formed part of a "kit" for embalming

procedures (ibid 113-116).

The pss-kf, or fish tail, knife accompanies three graves containing figurines (Table 3.1). Roth

catalogues 32 Predynastic pss-kf knives; 16 of these are from Nagada graves (Roth 1992: 131-2,

Tables 1 & 2). The early Nagada knives come predominantly from the poorer cemetery, NEast, while

the later Nagada knives are all from the richer cemetery, NWest. Unlike the figurines, the pss-kf

knives appear to have been appropriated by the higher class members of Nagada society.

Just how the knife was used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony has not been decisively

determined. Roth postulated that cutting the mouth after death had the same effect as cutting the

umbilical cord after birth, in that both acts enabled the newly born being to take sustenance: the dead

taking food for the afterlife, the baby taking the mother's milk (Roth 1992: 120-127). The pss-kf

knife, therefore, according to Roth, served the utilitarian purpose of severing the umbilical cord as

FIG. 5.3a

sunrise9 May 4000 BCE

Heliacal Rising of Orion

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Orion fully visible in the eastbefore sunrise.

270

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Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

Growing Harvest Low Water New Year Flood Planting

VISIBILITY OF ORION IN THE NIGHT SKY 4000 BCE UPPER EGYPT

Derived from rising and setting times of Orion and the Sun (Appendix 2)One hour has been subtracted in order to account for twilight.

GRAPH I

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271

A graph gives the contribution of the three main components to the totalwater regime. It shows the seasonal scarcity from December to June andthe peak of supply from July to October. ..

den. Fe 6. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug Sege, Oct. Nor. Dec.

' Graph showing the water contribution of the main components of the Nile based on

observations from 1912 to 1936. Although wide fluctuations of discharges exist, the long.

term averages of discharge are valid at present. From Hurst 1952.

ANNUAL INUNDATION OF THE NILE GRAPH 2

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sunrise

21 Oct 4000 BCE

Orion sets as sun rises, havingbeen visible since sunset

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FIG. 5.7

sunset21 Oct 4000 BCE

Orion is ready to rise afterdusk and be visible all night.

He sets as the sun rises (HG 5.6)

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sunrise21 Nov 4000 BCE

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FIG. 5.9

sunset21 Nov 4000 BCE

Orion rises as the sun sets,but sets before the sun rises

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FIG. 5.10

sunset21 Mar 4000 BCE

Orion will set shortly after thesun and be visible brieflybefore disappearing

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FIG. 5.11

sunrise21 Apr 4000 BCE

Orion rises after the sun

He will set with the sun (Fig. 5.12)so is not visible at all in the nightsky

Eridanus

Cetus'

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FIG. 5.12

sunset21 Apr 4000 BCE

Orion, having risen after thesun, sets with the sun andhence is not visible in thenight sky at all.

Acronychal setting of Orion.

280

well as the metaphorical purpose of severing the deceased k3's connection with earthly life, enabling

it to survive in the afterlife.

As far as I can determine, the second implement, the mshtyw-nw3 (Meskhetiu) adze (Fig. 4.15b) was

not known during the Predynastic, as I have not located any objects resembling this shape. Tipped

with a blade of meteoric iron, it opened the mouth of the deceased's mummy, enabling the mummy to

take food in the afterlife. It is, however, related to possible Predynastic mortuary practice through its

association with the foreleg, an important Dynastic ritual offering to the deceased and to Osiris, which

probably had its origin in the Predynastic rituals involving cattle.

The bull's (k3) foreleg constituted an important, perhaps principal, portion of the food (k3w) presented

to the deceased as Osiris after the Opening of the Mouth ceremony (Roth 1992: 126). One spell of

the Pyramid Texts specifically associates the foreleg with the actual Opening of the Mouth

performance. The word for the implement in this spell (Hph) is a pun on the word foreleg (Faulkner

1969: 3 n.1). The adze-shaped implement does not appear in the Pyramid Texts (Roth 1992: 113-

116), and, while the shape of the Hph implement is not known, this spell implies it was shaped like the

foreleg:

O Osiris the King, I split open your mouth for youwith the [Hph] of the Eye of Horus - 1 [one] foreleg. (Pyr. 12)

In this spell, the officiating priest uses the implement to open the mouth of the mummy and then

offers the mummy the first food of the afterlife, a foreleg. It appears that the Egyptians still practised

this sequence in this order at the time of Tutankhamen, for Fig. 4.15b places the mshtyw-nw3 adze

and the foreleg together on the offering table.

Although no record of the adze-shaped implement appears during the Predynastic or Old Kingdom, its

association with the foreleg suggests a link to the constellation of Ursa Major, as this constellation

represented to the early Egyptians, and possibly to the Predynastic Egyptians, this ritual portion of the

bull.

281

As discussed earlier, during the entire period of Egyptian history, Ursa Major revolved around the

centre of the Northern Sky and seemed to suggest to the Egyptians a sacrificial foreleg tethered to

the Mooring Post held by a Taweret-like Hippopotamus goddess. In the illustrations on Dynastic

tombs, the foreleg always appears in the same position, tethered at about 9 or 10 o'clock in the

Northern Sky (Figs. 4.14, 4.16, 5.15). At the times that Ursa Major revolved into the same position,

the outline of the constellation mirrored that of the mshtyw-nw3 (Meskhetiu) adze (Fig. 5.13). The

name for the configuration of the foreleg in the illustrations of the Imperishable Stars of the Northern

Sky is Meskhetiu (Neugebauer & Parker 1969: 189), referred to simply as Mes by Neugebauer and

Parker. Therefore, the double entendre of the foreleg in Pyr. 12 and the constellation suggests that

the Hph was the same shape.

The association with the adze implement and Ursa Major does not appear in accounts of Egyptian

iconography and mythology. Neugebauer and Parker do not appear to make this observation. Since

making this observation myself, I have only seen a brief mention in a privately published work on

Egyptian astronomy (Bradshaw 1997: 56 n. 174) that associates it with Ursa Minor rather than Ursa

Major. 67 Consulting SkyGlobe, I determined that the constellation appeared in this position in the

Egyptian night sky for the entirety of Egyptian history and pre-history, but not year-round. While, of

course, it attained this position every day, it was visible only at night.

To the Predynastic and Ancient Egyptians, Ursa Major appeared in the night sky in the position of the

mshtyw-nw3 adze and the foreleg from mid-October to early April. At the same time, Orion could be

seen at night in the Southern Sky, and as demonstrated, followed the growth cycle of the crops after

the inundation of the Nile. Therefore, for the Predynastic Egyptians, the harbinger of new life would

not only have been the increasing length of time Orion remained in the night sky, but the sign of the

(re)birth of the k3 in the Northern Sky, with Meskhetiu's return coinciding with Orion's all-night visibility

and the beginning of the planting season, Mes having been absent during the low water, drought and

high flood periods.

67 The entry for Meskh-ti, Meskh-t is defined as the constellation of the "Great Bear" (Ursa Major) in Budge's hieroglypyic dictionary.It includes a star determinative for the adze (Budge 1978 <1920>: 326), but this connection has not informed discussions of theUrsa Major constellation available to me.

NE •

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•

■

• -1

till

N

•

•

. : .

FIG. 5.13

Ursa Minor in the night sky.

from mid-October to early April.It mirrors the shape of theOpening of the Mouth adze.

4

O

4.•

O

0

283

&.

0 09

o sj

FORELEG (Me skia. et••• .......... ••

/ °*,

MOORING

POST

WRT ISIS

FIG. 5.14 Northern Sky — Region of the Imperishable Stars

Wrt, "The Great One" holds the "Mooring Post", to which istethered the "Foreleg" (Ursa Minor) also known as Mes(Meskhetiu). Mes here is depicted as an abstraction of a bullwith horns. Behind Wrt stands Isis. Holding the tether is thegoddess Serket.

From the Tomb of PedamenopeDynasties XXV - XXVI ca 560 BCE

284

The importance of these configurations to the agriculturally dependent Predynastic Egyptians should

not be underestimated. Dependent on the motions of the stars and constellations, rather than the sun

to mark the changes in their seasons, the early farmers would have noted the behaviour of these two

distinctive constellations at the critical times of planting, growth, and harvest. These celestial signs

would have far greater significance to them rather than to the protected priests of the Dynastic period.

Therefore, these constellations were probably noticed and interpreted religiously and symbolically

during the Predynastic stage, and then appropriated for royal purposes later by the Dynastic priests.

This point is explored in more detail below.

That the foreleg and the mshtyw-nw3 adze accompanied Orion further connects the Osirian rituals, in

this case the Opening of the Mouth, with the constellation of Orion for both Predynastic and Dynastic

Egyptians, and reinforces the importance of Osiris, or an Osirian-like agricultural and mortuary deity,

to the farming people of the Predynastic.

Conclusion

The relationship between Graphs 1 and 2 is obvious, even at first glance. In 4000 BCE Orion and the

Nile moved together throughout the year. Whatever the Predynastic Egyptians called Orion, its

significance would not have gone unnoticed, especially since its presence peaked at the start of the

planting season. As a celestial phenomenon which paralleled or guided the source of livelihood, and

which was born, waxed, waned, and died with the Nile, the crops, and fodder, Orion is well-placed to

represent the visible expression of a Predynastic deity of life, death, and resurrection. No human-

made iconography would be needed. Besides, to invite the supreme god of death, rebirth, and the

Underworld into the world of the living through a material form is dangerously unwise. Perhaps such

forces should be kept at a safe distance, in the sky – remote and contained within their own realms of

power.

One related question comes to mind, and it needs to be addressed: Since the "behaviour" of Sothis

also mirrored the ebb and flow of the Nile and the seasonal cycle, why necessarily postulate Orion

rather than Sothis as the presiding celestial deity? Most accounts of the religious life of the Egyptians

285

emphasise the coincidence of Sothis with the inundation, but the mythology never suggests that

Sothis as Isis symbolises death and resurrection, as does Osiris. She and Nephthys (possibly

Procyon, see Fig. 5.2) only assist Osiris in his journey from death and dismemberment to

rejuvenation and resurrection; Isis does not undergo the transformation herself. For this reason, this

discussion places the focus of Predynastic attention on Orion rather than Sothis and offers Orion, a

proto-Osiris, as the most promising candidate for a mortuary deity involved in the elaborate funerary

cult of the Predynastic, as it was in the Dynastic cult.

Another question comes to mind: If Orion were such an important manifestation in the Predynastic

period, why did he not feature prominently in the Pyramid Texts? Rather, Re and an ambiguously

defined Osiris dominate the mortuary rituals and spells of the deceased king, leaving scholars to

speculate on Osiris as a jackal god or fabulous beast. The following section explains why the

behaviour of the sun as Re, rather than the behaviour of Orion as Osiris, became important in the

royal mortuary cult.

The Lunar Calendar versus the Solar Calendar; Osiris versus Re; Orionversus the Sun

The Dynastic Egyptian astronomers developed a well-honed solar calendar pivoting on the first

appearance of Sirius/Sothis after her 70 days in the Duat. She and all the stars and constellations

along the belt just south of the ecliptic appeared in the east and moved across the sky after this two-

month absence. The Egyptians divided these stars into 36 constellations, each taking about 10 days

to rise before the next appeared on the horizon.

They called each of these constellations a decan, because of the 10 day period of their rising. The

Egyptian 360-day year was made up of these 36 decans, to which the Egyptians added 5 epagomenal

days - the birthdays of the gods - to arrive at the 365 day calendar, the basis of our current calendar

(Krupp 1984: 190-91; Neugebauer & Parker 1969: 81). The extra one-quarter day did not seem to

perturb the Egyptians. The combined effects of this miscalculation and the effect of the precession of

the equinoxes resulted in a reflection of ideal rather than actual time. On a nocturnal cycle, these

286

same constellations also told the hours, based on their night risings. Brief mentions in the Pyramid

Texts (Pyr. 269, 515, 1961) to the "hours" and epagomenal days indicate that the star clock and solar

calendar were in use as early as the Old Kingdom.

That the priests and astronomer/astrologers appeared little concerned for the actual "movements" of

the stars, and instead, preoccupied themselves with the texts and idealised patterns, suggests that

the elite had become removed from the source of their knowledge, the agricultural cycle. Their yearly

observances became a formality supported by symbolic ritual, rather than an acute observation of

astronomical phenomena. As the appearance of Sothis and Orion slipped out of synchronism with

the New Year, the Egyptians did nothing to rectify the anomaly, although they were certainly aware of

it (Krupp 1984: 191).

This Egyptian solar calendar of 365 days evolved from an earlier calendar, the lunar calendar, based

on the seasons: Inundation, Planting and Growth, Harvest, and Low Water (ibid 190), as illustrated in

Graph 2. This older calendar also did not coincide with the annual appearance of Orion and Sothis at

the end and beginning of the year, respectively, and adjustments had to be made. The lunar year fell

11 days short of the true solar year. The Egyptians compensated by adding an extra month every two

or three years (Krupp 1984: 190), indicating the importance of the coincidence of the agricultural

cycle with the celestial cycle. The original observations which underpinned the formalised texts,

practices, and calendar of the Dynastic period had vital significance for the earlier Egyptians, tying

the practical, earth-bound aspects of survival to the reliable regularity of the heavens. The Dynastic

priesthood and the elite, removed from such immediate contact with the cycles of the natural world,

lost cognisance of their dependence on it. The lunar calendar, which related more closely to the

seasons and to the lives of the average people who worked the land, was retained for scheduling

religious public festivals (Hornung 1992: 58), but was no longer used by the literate ruling class for

their ritual purposes.

I think, in part, this distancing from the natural world can account for the infrequent and minimal

emphasis in the Pyramid Texts on the relationship of Osiris with Orion and the inundation. Instead,

the predominating emphasis on the-relationship-of-Osiris-with k' -

287

and power became more immediate concerns. As Westendorf (1977) observed, Osiris lost his

cosmic nature and became more identified with rulership. The basis for the religion became more

and more abstracted and symbolic. After all, the Pyramid Texts were a collection of spells to help the

king attain his place in the afterlife, not a body of scripture upon which to establish practices

associated with the life and death of the average farmer. Hornung observed that the name "Osiris" in

the Pyramid Texts precedes the names of dead kings as though it were an official title (Hornung 1992:

110). Only the better-documented later periods of the Middle and New Kingdoms attest to the wide

popularity of the Osirian religion, with its emphasis on "fertility, vindication, and resurrection" (ibid

100). The Osirian religion may have always held this appeal, and only those parts of it concerned

with kingship, perhaps developed by the early priesthood, found their way into the earliest texts, the

Pyramid Texts.

After the disturbance of the First Intermediate Period, in order to regain and maintain the support of

the people, and hence their power, the elite found it expedient to acknowledge the spiritual needs of

their subjects by "democratising" the afterlife. The increasing textual references to Isis and Osiris,

and the acceptance of the correspondence between Osiris and Orion, Isis and Sothis reveal an

acknowledgment of the more popular, agriculturally-based religious beliefs and observances in which

Osiris and Isis featured more so than the deities of rulership - Re and Horus.

This dual aspect of Egyptian religion, that of rulership (Re) and agricultural fertility (Osiris), is

reflected in the dual aspect of their astronomy/astrology: the Imperishable Stars of the Northern Sky

and the Decanal belt in the southern sky. The Re system incorporates the Northern Sky with the

diurnal behaviour of the sun, which appears to enter the Underworld, but is considered to be still

active there, bringing light to those trapped in that darkness. Unlike Osiris, Re is immortal and does

not die. The sun god's behaviour is a metaphor or a model for the immortality of the king's soul as a

swallow which, in one of the two Re eschatologies, takes its place among the Imperishable Stars. As

has been explored in a number of spells, it does not go to Orion. In the Osiris-focused beliefs of the

after-life, the king, represented by Horus, dies, like Orion, the Nile, and all who derive life from it. He

is resurrected 70 days later as Osiris, Horus' father. These two "oppositional" yet complementary

288

systems are thereby made clearer when we associate them with the behaviour of the two groups of

constellations chosen by the Egyptians to reflect their religious beliefs.

Although based on the behaviour of the sun, the Re system, is not seasonal. Of the two systems, it is

the least relevant to an agricultural community, dependent on agreeable seasonal changes for its

survival and well-being. According to Krupp, although the Egyptians recognised the close

coincidence of the summer solstice and the appearance of Sothis, the Egyptian sun was an enemy,

especially at certain times of the year, (Krupp 1984: 187):

The sun . . . was ... a destructive force and an enemyof farmers. Rather it was the Nile that was recognizedas the source of cosmic good will.... The sun wasrespected for its power, but the Nile was the real rulerof Egypt.

The sun is an apt symbol of supreme power: immortal, never-changing, all-seeing, and capable of

life-giving warmth when it shines upon the newly planted crops, but also capable of devastating wrath

when its relentless heat burns the green vegetation to brown two months before the Nile flood returns.

Not surprisingly, a solar religion became that of the priestly elites, for unlike Osiris/Orion, Re does not

die for 70 days each year, leaving the land barren and without a god. Even in his punishing role in

intensifying the drought, he appears without fail every morning and wields more "power" than any

other celestial being.

For the agricultural Predynastic Upper Egyptians, while the reappearance of Sothis and Orion

promised relief, they could still not be relied on. Orion, especially, could not qualify as a supreme

ruler, for even in his reappearance he is helpless until Sothis arrives. Together they are responsible

for fertility and fecundity, but alone Orion is powerless. His unreliability and annual absence do not

fulfill the expectations demanded of a ruling deity - constancy, supremacy, and absolute power.

Although, for the Predynastic agricultural community, the combined behaviour of Orion, Sothis, and

the Nile Inundation provided an apt metaphor for an eschatology, such a system still lacked the

authority required of an all-seeing, absolute ruling power, capable of governing all aspects of life.

289

For other cultures whose religious attention also focuses on the heavens, the seasonal solar cycle

presents a cohesive universe. The undivided worship of the sun or a sun god makes sense in more

northern latitudes, such as Britain, where the return of the sun means the end of winter and the

beginning of new life. In Egypt, the solstices and equinoxes bear little relationship to the agricultural

cycle of planting, harvesting, and fallow. The Egyptian spring or planting season does not begin with

the vernal equinox in March; the summer solstice in June does not mark the peak of summer and the

growing season; the autumnal equinox in September does not mark the harvest; and the winter

solstice in December is not the nadir of their year, not the end of the old year, nor beginning of the

new year, the point at which the sun finally begins to return with its warmth and light.

With Orion marking the end of the year and Sothis marking the New Year, for the Predynastic and

Dynastic Egyptians, Orion/Sothis, rather than the sun, marked the agricultural seasons. The

equivalent of the winter solstice came in May, with the return of Orion. The equivalent of the vernal

equinox came in October, at the height of Orion's visibility. The Egyptian harvest, equivalent of the

autumnal equinox, arrived in March, as Orion diminished; and in late March/early April, the equivalent

of winter began, when Orion disappeared for 70 days. Therefore, the Egyptian lunar or seasonal year

was six months out of synchronisation with the solar year.

This tension between the seasonal and solar cycles is probably much older than the Pyramid Texts.

To the centralising forces of Upper Egypt, c3100 BCE, Orion presented an unlikely symbol for a

supreme deity; a more apt one would be found in the reliable and dominant sun. The sun god, as Re,

or Horus, the sky god in the form of a falcon with his two eyes representing the sun and moon,

expressed rulership and absolute divinity. The Narmer Palette and other Early Dynastic iconography

with the Horus names of the first documented rulers suggest the early identification of Horus as both

god and ruler. This association continued throughout the Dynastic period, with the living king

identified as Horus on the throne.

The sun god, represented by Horus, especially in his form of Re-Harakhty, rules the living (the day),

while Osiris, especially in his celestial form as Orion, rules the dead (the night). In some of the

Pyramid Texts the dead king becomes Osiris, ruling the Underworld, while the sun as Horus,

290

continues to rule the earth. By assigning the king responsibility for both rulership and the afterlife, the

Egyptians reconciled two separate and asynchronic, but equally vital, natural cycles: the sun and the

Nile (as governed by Orion/Osiris).

While the sun presented a better metaphor for rulership than Osiris/Orion, so Orion presented a more

apt symbol for the god of the Underworld and the cycle of death and resurrection. An agricultural

people more dependent on the life-sustaining cycle of Orion and the Nile than the beneficence of the

king or sun, would favour Orion rather than the sun as their symbol for immortality in the afterlife.

In Upper Egypt, more so than in lower Egypt, Predynastic burials placed the deceased in a north-

south position with the head to the south and the face to the west. Osiris, with the title, "Lord of the

Westerners" placed the resurrected dead under his care and rulership in the West. While the east is

associated with resurrection in both the Osiris and Re eschatologies, only the Osirian myths refer to

the West as a place of resurrection, as Osiris, not Re, is called the Foremost of the Westerners (Pyr.

1666, 2021). Resurrection with Re is always in the east, for Re is the deity of the eastern horizon

(Pyr. 362, 368, 585, 621, 1669, 2025). As a star who goes to Re, the dead king rises in the east with

or as the newly risen sun:

May I ascend and lift myself up to the sky asthe great star in the midst of the East. (Pyr. 1038)

My seat with Geb is made spacious, my star is seton high with Re, I travel to and fro in the Fields ofOfferings, for I am that Eye of Re which spendsthe night and is conceived and born every day.(Pyr. 698)

As unification took place, those myths most relevant to rulership became more important than the

myths surrounding agriculture and the Orion-Nile connection – more important to the elite, that is.

The average villager would still look to Orion and Sothis for sustenance, while the priests and nobility

would look increasingly to the king as a representative of the sun god. When the Heliopolitan priests

organised the cosmogonic gods into the Ennead, with the sun god in the form of Atum at the head,

Osiris took his place as the son of the earth god, Geb, and the sky goddess, Nut. If the Ennead

represented a cosmic hierarchy, then the sun, as creator and sustainer of life is supreme, while Osiris,

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as an agricultural fertility god, takes a subordinate position, despite his role as father of Horus, the

temporal sun god on the throne.

CONCLUSION

The connection between Orion and the agricultural cycle could have provided the Predynastic

Egyptians with a model upon which to develop their eschatology as well as their calendar. Like Orion,

the Nile, and the vegetation, the human being grew, flourished, subsided and died. After death, the

human soul remained in the Underworld for 70 days, after which it was resurrected in the West, just

as Orion, the Nile and the vegetation were resurrected after a period of fallow. The combination of a

dying vegetation god, a god of fertility, and sometimes a god of immortality is a common theme in

early agricultural communities from Canaan to Sumer and even Japan, removed from any Near

Eastern influence, and is repeated in the lunar-like resurrection of Christ after three days in the tomb.

Such an association of a male god with agricultural fertility may also be present in the Tantric myths

of India, in which Shakti revives her spouse, Shiva, after a period of dormancy.

It is significant that Orion's life and death take place at night, while the sun god is in the Underworld,

not during the day, when the sun god's power is at its height. That Orion is a celestial being of the

night possibly also contributed to his unsuitability as a supreme deity and confined his activities to the

Underworld, with his son, Horus, actively ruling by day. Orion, therefore, is both a celestial and

chthonic power. He is an "invisible god", yet capable of representation through a celestial entity. As

a cosmogonic god, like Ptah, Atum, Re, Amun, Nut, Geb, Shu, and Tefnut, he finds his most

appropriate expression in anthropomorphic form. During the Predynastic, this form may have been

purely mental, as in other similar cultures, but with associations in the stars. In the Dynastic period,

with the development of official doctrines, centrally organised religious rituals, elaborate temples and

public festivals, the need for statuary and visual representation developed as well. The

anthropomorphic gods of the imagination took artistic expression in human form. The deities

associated with Osiris who had theriomorphic or therianthropic expressions in the Predynastic

revealed their anthropomorphic natures. Isis, Nephthys, and Horus – three bird deities with

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relationships with Osiris — demanded a more human presence in the historic period, but their birdlike

attributes persisted as physical attributes and textual references throughout the Dynastic period.

In this chapter, I have argued for the presence of Osiris, or a proto-Osiris, as a main mortuary deity in

the Predynastic period in Upper Egypt. Without any material evidence, the only connections for

Osiris to the Predynastic period can be gathered from non-archaeological sources, such as historical

texts (the Pyramid Texts), ethnography (specifically the Nuer and Dinka), insights from comparative

religion, and the implications for religion taken from the natural environment. Such evidence can

never be conclusive, but only present possibilities consistent with later historical developments.

The argument for the Predynastic existence of Osiris prepares the ground for the interpretation of at

least some of the grave figurines as components of the Osirian mortuary cult. In the following

chapter, I present such an interpretation, focusing on Isis, Nephthys, Hathor, and Nut — the first three

are anthropomorphic deities with celestial power, each with a particular and intimate relationship to

Osiris, while Hathor, a popular goddess, has an intimate relationship with the dead.

A connection between these deities and the figurines would explain the absence of the figurines in

upper class graves. As part of the Osirian rituals, the figurines would not be so important to the upper

classes, who looked more to the increasing dominance of the solar cults, eventuating in the focus on

Horus and Re. The figurines, as part of the "folk culture" of ordinary people, could have been

considered "common", and to distinguish themselves above the common folk, the upper classes

would have developed their own exclusive rituals, choosing objects such as the wavy-handled pottery

to signify their status. Such separation of official cult and devotional religion, typical of Dynastic

religion, continued at least until the New Kingdom (Baines 1991c: 197). In the late Predynastic and

Early Dynastic, the gradual incorporation of Osirian deities and beliefs into elite practice, indicated

perhaps by the mortuary shift from Nagada to Abydos, resulted in their uncomfortable relationship

with Re in the Pyramid Texts, and the reinstatement of the Osirian female deities in rituals

surrounding the death of the king.