Osiris, << oh SY rihs, >> an Egyptian fertility god, became the chief god of the underworld. He is generally shown as a bearded human mummy with green or black flesh. He holds a shepherd’s crook and a whip and wears a conical white crown with ostrich feathers.
As son of the Earth god Geb, Osiris was regarded as a source of Earth’s fertility. Egyptians sometimes compared him to the Nile River. As a popular Egyptian god, Osiris was often identified with other gods. At Busiris in the Nile Delta region, he took on the characteristics of an earlier god-king. At the burial ground at Abydos, he replaced a god of the dead.
In Egyptian royal theology, the pharaoh was a living Horus, who was the son of Osiris. After the pharaoh died, he became Osiris. Egyptian funeral practices later became more democratic, and every Egyptian expected to become an Osiris after death. Osiris was the central figure in Egypt’s most popular myth. For an account of this myth, see Mythology (The Osiris myth).
