Domain: The dead, resurrection, the afterlife, fertility, kingship Symbol: The crook and flail, the atef crown, green skin, the djed pillar
Overview
Osiris is the god of the dead and the lord of the afterlife — but he began as a king of the living, the first pharaoh, who taught humankind agriculture and law before his brother murdered him. His story is the great Egyptian myth of death and return: he is slain, dismembered, mourned, reassembled, and reborn, and in that passage he becomes the ruler of the world beyond. Every Egyptian who died hoped to become an Osiris, to follow his path through death into a life that continues.
His green skin marks him as a god of growing things, of the black silt the Nile lays down and the grain that rises from it — death and fertility bound in the same figure, the seed that must be buried to bear. He embodies two of the tarot's turning cards at once: Death, the great transition, the one-way threshold and the transformation that waits beyond it; and Judgement, the resurrection and the weighing of a life, the call of the dead to rise and be reckoned. In his hall the heart of the deceased is set against the feather of truth, and Osiris presides over the verdict.
Key Myths
The murder by Set. Set, jealous of his brother's kingship, tricked Osiris into lying down in a chest fitted exactly to his body, then sealed it and cast it into the Nile. In another telling he later tore the recovered body into fourteen pieces and scattered them across Egypt.
The gathering and the resurrection. Isis, his wife and sister, searched the length of the land to gather the scattered pieces, and with her magic — aided by Nephthys, Anubis, and Thoth — bound the body whole again. She revived him long enough to conceive their son Horus. Osiris did not return to the world of the living; he descended to rule the dead instead, the first to make death into a kingdom.
The judgment of the dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, Osiris sits enthroned as the dead are brought before him. The heart is weighed against the feather of Ma'at; those found true join him in the afterlife, and those found wanting are devoured. He is the destination of every soul's long journey.
Related
- Death — The Major Arcana card of transition and the one-way threshold he crosses and rules
- Judgement — The card of resurrection and reckoning; he rises and presides over the weighing of the heart
- Isis — His wife and sister, who gathered his body and restored him
- Set — His brother and murderer
- Horus — His son and avenger, conceived after his death
- Tarot
- Mythology