The King as Osiris | Pharaohs as Egyptian Gods

Although the Egyptian sources equate the deceased king with several deities, there is a clear and constant emphasis throughout most of Egyptian history on the association of the king with the god Osiris. This was doubtless because the role of the kingship fitted the Osiride mythology paricularly well.

Ka figure of King Ay. The Royal ka seems
to have incorporated the royal ancestors, as
well as the ka of the living king, and as such
represented one aspect of the divinity of the
deceased king.
18th Dynasty. Tomb of Ay.
Western Valley of the Kings.
Egyptian Gods.

Every pharaoh ceased to function as the earthly Horus - and son of Osiris - upon death and was identified by virtue of death with the deceased Osiris. He thus stood as predecessor in relation to the next living king as the mythical Osiris did to Horus. ccording to this symbolic metaphor, by becoming one with Osiris the dead king also became ruler of the afterlife region - switching realms, as it were, from rule over the living to rule over the dead.

As time progressed royal mortuary iconography was increasingly adapted to this equation of the dead king with Osiris. We find this manifested in dozens of ways. Osiride insignia such as the crook and flail were placed on New Kingdom royal coffins, showing continued afterlife rulership with Osiris despite the absense of an earthly crown in the king's afterlife representations.

Also, the figures of Isis and Nephthys were placed at either end of the royal coffin or sarcophagus to fulfil the role of mourning for the deceased Osiris. The decoration of the royal tombs of the New Kingdom also stressed the fusion of the deceased king and Osiris, though to a large extent this is overshadowed by the symbolic association of the king with the sun god Re.

However, some scenes, such as those found on the side walls and tympana of the 19th-Dynasty royal buial chambers, focus on the fusion of the Osiris (who came to be viewed as the mummy or corpse of Re at this time), the sun god, and the king.

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