at How (Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is represented overshadowing the coffer of Osiris; and in the series of sculptures which represent the mystic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philae, a tamarisk is depicted with two men pouring water on it. The inscription on this last monument leaves no doubt, says Brugsch, that the verdure of the earth is believed to be connected with the verdure of the tree, and that the sculpture refers to the grave of Osiris at Philae, of which Plutarch says that it was overshadowed by a methide plant, taller than any olive-tree. This sculpture, it may be observed, occurs in the same chamber in which Osiris is represented as a corpse with ears of corn sprouting from him.[1] In inscriptions Osiris is referred to as “the one in the tree,” “the solitary one in the acacia,” etc.[2] On the monuments he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree or with plants.[3] It accords with the character of Osiris as a tree-spirit that his worshippers were forbidden to injure fruit-trees, and with his character as a god of vegetation in general that they were not allowed to stop up wells of water, which are so important for purposes of irrigation in hot southern lands.[4]
The original meaning of the goddess Isis is still more difficult to determine than that of her brother and husband Osiris. Her attributes and epithets were so numerous that in the hieroglyphics she is called
- ↑ Wilkinson, op. cit. iii. 349 sq.; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 621; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 20. In Plutarch l.c. Parthey proposes to read μυρίκης for μηθίδης, and this conjecture appears to be accepted by Wilkinson, l.c.
- ↑ Lefébure. Le mytrhe Osirien, p. 191.
- ↑ Lefébure, op. cit. p. 188.
- ↑ Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35. One of the points in which the myths of Isis and Demeter agree, is that both goddesses in their search for the loved and lost one are said to have sat down, sad at heart and weary, on the edge of a well. Hence those who had been initiated at Eleusis were forbidden to sit on a well. Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 15; Homer, Hymn to Demeter, 98 sq.; Pausanias, i. 39, 1; Apollodorus, i. 5, 1; Nicander, Theriaca, 486; Clemens Alex., Protrept. ii. 20.
