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Osiris is one of the principal Egyptian gods who first appeared in funerary texts during the Pyramid Age, when the practice of mummification began (2400 B.C.). He presided over the court that determined the fate of kings when they died. He is portrayed as a mummified man wearing a tall white crown adorned with two ostrich feathers.
According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth then brought back to life by the love of his sister and wife, Isis. This myth describes the forces of destruction that initiated the process of mummification. The love of Isis is symbolic of regeneration and the promise of eternal life. The cycle of destruction, death and rebirth was repeated each year in the annual flood of the Nile, the river that provided the essential ingredients needed to sustain life, giving birth to one of the first civilizations.
Osiris and Isis had a son named Horus. Together they represent a holy family: god, goddess and divine child. In the New Kingdom, the main temples throughout Egypt venerated a holy family modelled on the Osiris, Isis and Horus triad.
Osiris is also equated with the miracle of the Nile and the rich harvest, as the text from the sarcophagus of a high priestess of Amun named Ankhnesneferibra attests:
Hail, you are the maker of grain, he who gives life to the gods with the water of his limbs, and bread to every land with the water that takes form under him.
The word hieroglyph literally means "sacred carvings". The Egyptians first used hieroglyphs exclusively for inscriptions carved or painted on temple walls. This form of pictorial writing was also used on tombs, sheets of papyrus, wooden boards covered with a stucco wash, potsherds and fragments of limestone.
Hieroglyphics are an original form of writing out of which all other forms have evolved. Two of the newer forms were called hieratic and demotic. Hieratic was a simplified form of hieroglyphics used for administrative and business purposes, as well as for literary, scientific and religious texts. Demotic, a Greek word meaning "popular script", was in general use for the daily requirements of the society. In the third century A.D., hieroglyphic writing began to be replaced by Coptic, a form of Greek writing. The last hieroglyphic text was written at the Temple of Philae in A.D. 450. The spoken Egyptian language was superseded by Arabic in the Middle Ages.
Hieroglyphs and their cursive equivalents
Taken from: G. Steindorff and K. Seele, When Egypt Ruled the East, Chicago: 1942, p.122
It was not until the nineteenth century that Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered. Several people had been trying to crack the code when the brilliant young Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion discovered the secret to this ancient writing. A decree issued at Memphis, Egypt, on March 27, 196 B.C. was inscribed on the Rosetta Stone in three scripts: hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek. After Thomas Young deciphered the demotic text, Champollion used the information to break the code of the hieroglyphic text in 1822. In 1828, he published the famous "Précis" that marked the first real breakthrough in reading hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs are written in columns or in horizontal lines. They are generally read from right to left and from top to bottom. Sometimes, the script is read from left to right. The reader can determine the orientation by looking at the animal and human figures -- they face towards the beginning of the text. For example: if a figure faces right, the text should be read from right to left.
Words and names written in hieroglyphs were believed to have magical powers. For this reason, funeral texts and the names of the deceased were written on coffins and tomb walls. This meant that the gods would hear the prayers and the individuals would be protected from harm. A name written in hieroglyphs embodied a person's identity. If it was obliterated, the person's identity was lost, along with his or her means to continue living in the afterworld. The names of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Queen Hatshepsut, for example, were removed from temple walls by their successors
This temple is located a mile south of Karnak Temple. Karnak and Luxor temples were once joined by an avenue lined with two rows of human-headed stone sphinxes, guardians of the temple gates and the underworld. Today, the remains of this avenue can be seen outside the entrance to Luxor Temple.
The temple stands on the site of a New Kingdom building commissioned by Amenhotep III in approximately 1380 B.C. A hundred years later, Rameses II added a great pylon gateway and an open courtyard. Unlike Karnak Temple, this temple was not enhanced by later pharaohs.
Since all the temples were built from an original design dictated by the gods, they have a similar look to them. For this reason, it is easy to confuse one temple with another
Located at the northern end of the town of Luxor, Karnak Temple has three main sacred areas that honour three gods: Montu, an ancient local warrior god; Amun, the chief god of Thebes; and the goddess Mut, wife of Amun. Amun, Mut and their son, Khonsu, were members of the sacred family known as the Theban Triad.
The construction of Karnak Temple began in the Middle Kingdom and was completed during the New Kingdom, some 1,600 years later. Every successive king of this era added to the temple, which covers two hectares (five acres) of land. It is a complicated site with four courtyards, ten pylons, a sacred lake and many buildings.
An avenue of sphinxes with curly-horned rams’ heads leads to the entrance to the first pylon. The sphinxes represent a form of the sun god, Amun-Re. Between their paws is a small figure of Rameses II, who won the famous Battle of Qadesh against the Hittites in Syria (1274 B.C.).
Over a long period of time, the Egyptians built numerous temples along the Nile. Two of the most famous, at Karnak and Luxor, are featured in the IMAX® film Mysteries of Egypt. These impressive structures, with their huge columned halls and pylon gateways, were built to honour the dead and venerate local and national gods.
Temples were places where the gods and their divine energy could reside, separated from everything else in the world. According to the Egyptian creation legend, the first temple came into existence on a mound of land that rose up from the primeval sea, called Nun. The first form of life to appear on that mound was a plant on which the falcon, Horus, first perched. Another version of this story describes the lotus flower as the first plant on which the sun emerged. Following this, human beings were created. This moment was called the First Occasion. As sentient beings, the Egyptians reciprocated by building temples to revere and nourish the gods.
The design of the first temple was laid down by the gods, and each successive temple was a copy of the first one. The design encouraged the gods to bring divine energy into the earth’s plane. Priests worked at the temples, conducting the daily rituals in honour of the deities and pharaohs to whom the temples were dedicated
