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Two Bronze Osiris Figures
- Country: Egypt
- Source: Private Northern New Jersey collection, acquired 1993
- Size (cm): 10
- Material: Bronze
Osiris was considered not only a merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. He was described as the “Lord of love”,[7] “He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful”[8] and the “Lord of Silence”.[9] The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death — as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death, if they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals.