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Seth spoke. The chest was a game: the climax of the evening’s entertainment. Whoever could lie down inside the chest could keep it. There was a scramble as Seth’s allies rushed forward and attempted to squeeze their bulky bodies into the narrow space. But none fitted. Then the slender Osiris, his perceptions blunted by the wine, stepped forward to take his turn. He lay down in the chest. It was a perfect fit, as Seth knew it would be – he had secretly measured his brother’s body weeks before. Before Osiris could sit up to claim his prize Seth slammed the lid shut and bolted it. The elaborately decorated chest, tailored exactly to Osiris’ measurements, had become his coffin. Seth coated the coffin in lead, then dragged it to the Nile and threw it in. Caught by the current, the coffin slowly sailed northwards into the great green sea.
The tongue is a scale that will always betray men’s deficiencies.
The Deceased speaks: What will be the duration of my life?
Atum speaks: You shall be for millions on millions of years, a lifetime of millions of years. I will despatch the Elders and destroy all that I have made; the earth shall return to the Primordial Water, to the surging flood, as in its original state. But I will remain with Osiris. I will transform myself into something else, namely a serpent, without men knowing or the gods seeing …
The water of life which has food for all,
It is thirst for me...
It comes to him who is on earth,
I thirst with water beside me …
Realizing that the new capital city of Alexandria needed a patron deity, Ptolemy summoned the Egyptian priest Manetho of Sebennytos and the Greek priest Timotheos of Athens, and invited them to design a new god with no pre-existing allegiance to either a city or a dynasty, and no powerful, long-established priesthood. Such a god, if he appealed to both Egyptians and Greeks, might go some way towards uniting Alexandria’s religiously mixed population.
The result was Serapis, a combination of Osiris and the Greek Dionysos, Hades (god of the underworld), Asklepios (god of medicine), Helios (the sun god) and Zeus (king of the gods). An anthropomorphic deity – animal and animal–human hybrid gods being unacceptable to non-Egyptians – Serapis personified divine kingship, healing, fertility and the afterlife. His name was derived from the name of the Memphite god Osor-Apis, himself a fusion of Osiris and the deceased Apis bull, and he borrowed heavily from their mythology. Serapis was married to the universally popular Isis who, as the wife of Osiris, was already acceptable to both Greeks and Egyptians. The triad of Serapis, Isis and their son Harpocrates quickly came to be associated with the ruling Ptolemaic dynasty. While the native Egyptians showed little interest in their new god, Serapis enjoyed a huge success throughout the Greek and Roman worlds.
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The Penguin Book of Myths and Legends of Ancient EgyptJoyce A. Tyldesley · Reprint Edition · 01 okunma