Isis was the mother, wife, sister, and daughter of Osiris.
Horus was the brother and son of Osiris and Isis, and was Osiris himself.
7. Anubis (Anupo) the dog-star.
Who does not understand at once that, out of these half-astronomical, half-cosmogonical conceptions, a religion and art full of mysticism, blending into one Fetishism, Astrology, and Anthropomorphism, must have grown? Only through a careful study of Egyptian mythology are we enabled to comprehend that gigantic power which urged the people to construct those temples and palaces, those labyrinths and catacombs, as mystic in themselves, as the hidden powers of nature. The masses in Egypt were kept in a degraded state of passive obedience; they were overawed by metaphysical subtleties, and by huge stone monsters, which filled them with horror, and made them subservient to the dictates of a gloomy priesthood. Religion and art, both supported by a vast store of natural science, were the exclusive property of the priests, of whom the Pharaoh was the merely tolerated head, a kind of stone idol in the flesh. Egyptian art was an echo of priestly caprices, which, wrapt in symbolism, had a powerful hold on the untutored minds of the people. Careful investigations have proved that these priests were of a different race to the aborigines; their mythological analogies point to immigrated Brahmans, who brought some religious notions with them from the Ganges, and transferred them to the Nile.
Egyptian art reflects in every form the gorgeous influences of religion. The whole life of every Egyptian was placed, in seven phases, under the protection of seven divinities. The first period of man’s life was under the influence of Isis, the moon (Luna, Selene). The second was devoted to Hermes; during this period man had to learn to read and to write, to play the harp, to dance, to develop the body in the gymnasium, and to make himself well versed in knowledge according to his station in life; but the only station that granted man an insight into knowledge was that of the priest. During the third period man was under the care of Hat-her (Athyr), or Venus. Love was to rule the youth; the world was to appear to him in the rosy hue of a mystic foam of incomprehensible longing. The fourth period was under the dominion of Ra (Helios); when love had ceased to disturb the mind, and to fill this world with illusions, the light of truth and earnest activity was to ripen man, and to prepare him for the fifth period, under the protection of Man or Mars, the God of War; man was to learn either to conquer others, or to conquer his own passions, and to work in the State as a useful member. Few only reached the sixth period, guided by Amn, the supreme representative of abstract wisdom; during this period man was admitted to act as a judge, to sit at the board of a hierarchical council, or to teach priests as high-priest. At last man became, during the seventh period, vapour—breath—air—under the dominion of Num (Kneph), and was detached from reality; if good, transferred into a state of ideality; if not, doomed to begin life anew as a loathsome animal, till he atoned for his evil deeds, and, purified, reached the bright abode of Osiris.
B. The pyramidal period, the most ancient of Egyptian art, is the outgrowth of these mystic religious conceptions. Nature was to be reproduced, and surpassed in her sublime grandeur. The mountain was brought into a geometrical shape.
The three principal pyramids were built during the reign of the fourth dynasty, 3426 B.C.-3220 B.C.; the first, by Shufu (Cheops), was, in extent, 13 acres 1 rood and 22 perches, more than twice the area of St. Peter’s at Rome. The original quantity of masonry was 89,028,000 cubic feet. Total height 480 feet; 16 feet higher than St. Peter’s, and 120 feet higher than St. Paul’s (London); 360,000 human beings worked at it for twenty years. The stones are from 9 to 12 feet in length, and 6½ to 8 feet in breadth. The second pyramid was smaller, built by Shafra (Chephren), only 454 feet high; and the third by Menkare (Mykerinus), 218 feet high. The mode of fitting the polished stones together is a perfect master-piece of architectural construction.
Osiris was to be worshipped in all halls of festival, in all creation, in all places. Temples were erected in honour of the gods, which were approached through avenues of sphinxes. These sphinxes were of six different kinds. 1. The pure lion (symbol of Amn). 2. The lion with the ram’s head (Krio-sphinx—symbol of Khem or Amn). 3. The lion with hawk’s head (symbol of Ra). 4. The lion with a male human head (the symbol of Osiris or Horus). 5. The lion with a female human head (the symbol of Mut or Isis). 6. The lion’s half-body and legs, with female human head and arms, as in the reliefs of Karnack, and on the Campesian obelisk (probably the symbol of Net).
The tombs were, more or less deeply, hewn into rocks. They generally begin with a small sanctuary, from which an inclined passage leads down into the sepulchral chamber. The decoration is an imitation of wooden trellis-work in very gay colours. The threshold also distinctly bears the traces of a primitive wood construction; a round, trunk-like beam generally unites the two door-posts, and even the ceilings of the apartments are repeatedly made in imitation of wooden boards fastened together. The pillars are square, and united either by a rectangular architrave or by circular beams.
The temples point, by their forms, to a civilisation which took its course from south to north. This bears out the theory that Meroe was once the seat of a colony of priests, who spread religion, and with it science and art, from Upper into Lower Egypt. Thebes appears to have been the most ancient seat of the Egyptian Pharaohs, one of the first of whom was perhaps Osiris, though he has been placed amongst the gods, and was said to have been, like Krishna, an incarnation of the Supreme Being, who revealed himself in love and kindness, and was to put an end to the dominion of Typhon, the Eternal Evil. Might not this myth conceal some historical fact—the advent of a wise hero, who conquers a wild and reckless tyrant? For Osiris had to go through all the sufferings of humanity, and even to suffer death, so as to become the saviour, the deliverer of his people; and then only was he able to turn the earth into a powerful kingdom. By Earth, we may assume, Upper Egypt was meant, where the god-man Osiris presided, who, in spite of his having become man, and belonging to the third order of the gods, was placed on an equality with the gods of the first order. The temple or tomb of Ipsambul may be considered the very oldest rock-hewn construction; it has a figure of Osiris twenty feet high over the entrance door. We pass over the remains of Philæ, Elephantine, and Edfou, and come to those of Karnac and Luxor, the venerable Thebes, which, in the fifth century B.C., during the times of Herodotus, were already in a state of dilapidation.