In Egyptian astrology, the current sign is Osiris. Here are 10 things you might not know about the god Osiris:
- The name “Osiris” comes from the ancient Egyptian word Asir or Wsir, which means someone extremely powerful who sits on a throne.
- He was the Egyptian god of death and the underworld, but also of resurrection and fertility.
- In art, Osiris is depicted as a man with a pharaoh's beard who is mummified from the chest down. His skin is usually Green or Black to represent fertility and new birth. He wears a crown of ostrich feathers and carries a crook and a flail an agricultural tool used to separate the grain from the husks. He is said to have taught the people law and agriculture, and introduce them to Barley, one of their most important crops.
- He was the son of Geb and Nut, and his siblings were Nepthys, Set and Isis. Isis was also his wife and they were the parents of Horus.
- Osiris is the subject of one of the most famous stories about Egyptian gods, known as the Osiris Myth. Osiris and Isis started out in charge of the world of the living. His brother Set was jealous of him and hatched a plot to kill him. Set built a coffin, made to measure for Osiris, and said he would give the coffin as a gift to anyone it fitted. He invited his brother to try it out, and when Osiris lay down in the coffin, Set slammed it shut, locked it, and threw it in the Nile. It floated away and eventually got stuck in a tree, which grew around it and trapped Osiris even more securely. Malcander, the King of Byblos; and his wife Astarte came across the tree and fell in love with its beautiful fragrance. Malcander ordered the tree to be cut down to be taken to his palace and be made into an ornamental pillar. Osiris, having survived thus far, didn't survive being made into a pillar.
- Meanwhile, his wife Isis was searching high and low for his body, knowing that if she found it, she could bring him back to life. She disguised herself as an old woman in order to infiltrate Malcander and Astarte's palace. Once inside, she revealed who she really was, and they offered her anything she wanted. Needless to say, she chose the pillar. She hid it in the Nile deltas with her sister Nepthys guarding it while she gathered herbs for the resurrection spell. Set found out, and tricked Nepthys into giving him the body. Set cut the body into pieces and scattered them.
- Even so, Isis didn't give up. She managed to gather all of Osiris's body, apart from his penis, which had been thrown in the Nile and eaten by fish. She put him back together and brought him to life, but there were a couple of problems due to the fact he didn't have a willy. It meant he was incomplete and therefore not fit to rule the living, and he couldn't father a child. Although Isis found a way round the latter problem by turning herself into a kite and flying round him in circles, which somehow had the effect of drawing his sperm out of him and into her body to create Horus. Unable to rule the living, Osiris became the ruler of the underworld and would welcome those who proved worthy into the afterlife.
- After they died, pharaohs were mummified to resemble Osiris. This was partly as a reminder of the god, and partly to fool evil spirits into thinking this was the actual god and keep them away.
- The centre of the cult of Osiris was the city of Abydos, although he was worshipped throughout the land. Annual fertility rites were performed in his honour, including filling an effigy of him with soil and planting grain in it, which would sprout, representing new life.
- The reserve boat for Oxford University Women's Boat Club is named Osiris.
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