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1st Vice President - Kori McLane

the god Osiris

Produced in the 6th century B.C.E., this bronze statue depicts the Egyptian deity Osiris as a covered mummy with a fire-breathing snake for a crown – unfortunately, this is only in legend and not an actual special effect. Osiris, god of the underworld much like the Greek Hades, was a human-turned-god and judge of the dead; he was known by many names including Usir and, quite flatteringly, “The Beautiful One.” Unlike Oedipus, he knowingly married Isis, the goddess of beauty and, unfortunately, his sister, to keep the royal bloodline pure. He became widely popular by 2400 B.C.E. as both a god of fertility and a symbol of resurrection; he became favored by the Egyptian populous in the possibility of life after death, which was quite fortunate for him as, in the DC comics universe, he will die if all his followers do.

However, his legend was not only constrained to Egypt; the Greek writer Plutarch crafted parts of his widely-known story of murder, dismemberment, and resurrection to become the god of the dead. In some myths of his ruling on Earth (before dismemberment, of course), he was believed to reach a towering 15 feet, though the statue is only a foot and a half the Egyptians portray him with godlike qualities even through his mortal days. Despite this statue being one of few remaining (though Amazon has many if you’re in the market for one), dedicating small statues to him was a practice that caught on around the start of the first millennium B.C.E. Egyptian worship varied; it could be anything from burnt meat (human, in the case of a pharaoh’s death) to carved jewelry, though they did not typically practice the common mass-participant temple religion seen today – some statues were simply carved with an inscription praying for the gods to “give life” to the disciple. Osiris was one of the most popular and most worshipped Egyptian gods of the time (though it is now only the 948th most popular boys name :( ), often receiving barley as a tribute, one of Egypt’s most valued goods. Through this historical lens, Osiris can be seen as a pivotal factor in Ancient Egyptian daily life and helps reveal the lives and practices of the common people of past ages; as the great Snoop Dogg once said, “You’ve got to always go back in time if you want to move forward”, and, more notably, “Drop it like it’s hot.”

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