# Osiris Source: https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/osiris Language: en # Osiris Ruler of the dead, associated with restoration and renewal. **Also written**: Wesir · Usir · Osiris-Wennefer · أوزوريس · وسير Useful clues to take into the temple. ## How to recognise them Osiris often appears wrapped as a mummy, holding a crook and flail. His atef crown has a tall central element flanked by feathers. The djed is a pillar-shaped symbol with stacked crossbars, associated with stability. Use these clues together with the inscription. ## Who they were In the story as the Egyptians told it, Osiris ruled Egypt, was killed by his brother Seth, was reassembled and revived long enough by his wife Isis for their son Horus to be conceived, and then took his place as king of the dead while Horus took the throne of the living. That structure is the reason Egyptian funerary religion looks the way it does: the dead person becomes an Osiris, and by the New Kingdom ordinary Egyptians expected the same transformation that had once been a royal privilege. The full connected narrative comes down to us mostly through late and Greek retellings; the Egyptian sources give it in pieces, as allusions in spells and hymns. ## Where you meet them He is at the end of most tomb walls on the west bank, in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens alike, and in the painted workmen’s tombs at Deir el-Medina. He also appears as architecture: the standing mummiform statues carved against pillars in temple courts — Osiride pillars — show the king in his form, and there are rows of them at Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum and Deir el-Bahari. God ## Who they are shown with [ God ### Isis The reliable sign is a small stepped throne worn on her head — a seat drawn in profile, which is literally how her name is written. From the New Kingdom on she also wears cow’s horns with a sun disc between them, and that is exactly Hathor’s crown, so the two become genuinely hard to separate: if there is a throne, it is Isis; if there is only horns-and-disc, read the caption or the context, and remember that in a tomb the two goddesses flanking a coffin are usually Isis and her sister Nephthys. The other giveaway is the pose. In funerary painting Isis very often kneels at one end of a shrine, a coffin or a scene with her arms stretched out and long feathered wings hanging from them, mirrored by Nephthys at the other end. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/isis)[ God ### Horus A falcon or falcon-headed figure may represent Horus, but several deities use falcon imagery. Crown, accompanying text and the action in the scene provide the more reliable identification. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/horus)[ God ### Anubis Anubis commonly appears as a black canid or a man with a canid head, associated with embalming and protection of the dead. Black has symbolic significance here; use captions and context to distinguish him from other canid deities. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/anubis)[ God ### Ra By day: a man with a falcon’s head carrying a plain sun disc on top, almost always with a cobra coiled at the front of it. Falcon head plus disc is Re or Re-Horakhty; falcon head with a crown but no disc is far more likely to be Horus, and that is the distinction worth holding on to. At night, in the tombs, he changes: inside the boat, in a shrine, stands a man with a ram’s head, often labelled as the flesh or body of Re — a ram-headed figure in a boat on a tomb wall is the night sun, not Amun. In the morning he is a scarab beetle pushing the disc up in front of it, and on many burial-chamber ceilings the scarab and the ram-headed figure appear at the two ends of the same journey. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/ra) Continue reading ## Where to look 1–1 / 7 [Necropolis · West bank ### Valley of the Kings The royal burial landscape of the New Kingdom: rock-cut tombs tucked into a desert valley, separate from the kings’ major commemorative temples. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/valley-of-the-kings)[Necropolis · West bank ### Valley of the Queens A royal cemetery whose tombs vary greatly in decoration and access. Check which are open before deciding how it fits your day. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/valley-of-the-queens)[Temple · West bank ### Temple of Hatshepsut Terraces set straight into the cliff at Deir el-Bahari — and a reign that was later chiselled off its own walls. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/temple-of-hatshepsut)[Temple · West bank ### Medinet Habu Colour survives here wherever the roof did — on a temple built by a king fighting to hold Egypt together. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/medinet-habu)[Temple · West bank ### The Ramesseum Ramesses II’s mortuary temple, largely collapsed — including the colossus that put “Ozymandias” into English. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/ramesseum)[Village · West bank ### Deir el-Medina The village of the men who cut the royal tombs. It is the site that makes all the others feel human. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/deir-el-medina)[Necropolis · West bank ### Tombs of the Nobles Private tombs across the Theban hills, where images of work, family and offerings express the status and afterlife hopes of officials and their households. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/tombs-of-the-nobles) Sources & further reading 3 Tier 2 The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson Thames & Hudson Tier 2 Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses and Traditions of Ancient Egypt, Geraldine Pinch Oxford University Press Tier 2 Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt, Stephen Quirke Wiley-Blackwell Source review is incomplete. Consultation dates are shown only for checked references. Published works and institutional references for further reading. [Sources and review status](mailto:corrections@egyptmore.com?subject=Luxor101%20correction) [Gods](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods)