I have called attention to the aims which the ancient Egyptians kept so persistently in view in constructing and furnishing the tombs of their kings. The pharaoh’s body was embalmed to make sure of the continuation of his existence beyond the grave. The conviction that this object was really attained when the mummy was made and housed in an imperishable building induced them to furnish the tomb lavishly and to provide an ample store of food to sustain him and give him all the comforts and luxuries to which he was accustomed when he was living upon earth. But, to make doubly sure, they inscribed upon the walls of his tomb, upon his sarcophagus and coffins, and on papyri placed in the tombs, certain texts to make clear his identification with Osiris, with the practical object of ensuring that he should share the fate of the god and attain the immortality which the god had secured. Moreover, other devices were adopted to make the issue more certain.
Fig. 9.—Drawing from Book of the Dead to illustrate the Germinating Osiris, from Rosellini.
Of the objects found in association with the mummies of Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty to which definite cultural importance was attached, none is more remarkable than the so-called “germinating Osiris.” Several examples of this singular symbol were found in the tombs of Tutankhamen’s predecessors, as far back as Amenhotep II. (1420 b.c.), and as it was observed in its fullest development in the tomb of his successor, Horemheb (1315 b.c.), it is more probable than not that Tutankhamen’s will also be similarly equipped. It consists of a shallow box about 5 ft. long, shaped so as to represent the god Osiris, wearing a crown and holding the crook and whip in his hands. By means of wooden partitions the features of the head, the necklace, the arms are represented. This shallow box was filled with earth in which barley was planted; when it germinated and the sprouts had attained two or three inches in height a closely-fitting lid was fastened on to the box by wooden pegs. The lid is slightly sculptured en ronde bosse, and painted yellow. The details of the body and the ornaments are indicated in relief, the effect of which is heightened by lines of black and red.
The King and Osiris
The symbolism expressed in this remarkable procedure was in keeping with the motives which were explained earlier in this chapter, the identification of the dead king with Osiris (who was himself a dead king), whose magical powers as the bestower of renewed life and a continuation of existence after death was symbolized by the germinating barley.
But the procedure was richly charged with the deepest religious significance. I have already explained that the whole of the burial customs of the early Egyptians and the dramatic ritual which formed part of the tomb ceremonies were inspired by the desire to ensure the prolongation of existence. The body was made imperishable and protected by every means the relatives could devise: it was supplied with abundance of food and all the necessaries of life; and, above all, the “germinating Osiris” was there to complete the process and perpetually to animate and prolong the existence of the corpse. If its potency was derived from the reproduction of the form of Osiris, an equally vital part of its supposed magical power was due to the fact that it consisted of barley in the act of producing new life.
As the earliest cereal that was cultivated and the staple diet of the earliest civilized people—and the chief factor in creating their civilization—barley came to occupy a peculiarly distinctive rôle in early belief. It was the staff of life and the material from which beer was made, the drink which was regarded as “divine,” in the sense that life-giving qualities were attributed to it, and to the ancient Egyptian the essence of divinity was the attainment of unlimited existence. But the form assumed by a grain of barley (i.e. its similarity to the organ of birth, the giver of life) led to the assimilation of its life-sustaining with definitely life-giving functions. It was identified with the Great Mother as a life-giver (in her forms as Hathor or Isis); and the “corn mother” acquired the reputation of being able to prolong existence in other ways than providing food and drink. The coffin texts of the Middle Kingdom (circa 2000 b.c.) translated by M. Lacau refer to the identification of the deceased with Osiris and barley, and in the Pyramid texts many centuries earlier the dead king is represented, as making the following claim: “I am Osiris. I live as the gods; I live as ‘Grain’; I grow as ‘Grain.’ I am barley.” (Professor Breasted’s translation.) Just as the Nile (which was personified as Osiris) conveyed new life to the grains of barley by irrigating them, so the god was supposed to be able to grant a new lease of existence to the dead.