Osirion

Osirion was discovered by archaeologists Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray , who excavated at this site in 1902-1903. Osirion was cleared of sand only in 1914, since the floor level of Osirion is located about 8 meters below the level of the Temple of Seti ^[2] . Professor Nevill of the Egyptian Research Foundation, who cleared this complex, believed that Osirion is one of the oldest buildings in Egypt. But after several inscriptions on behalf of Seti I were found on its walls in the 1920s, this building was declared the construction of this pharaoh.

There is still disagreement over exactly who built Osirion and what his age is. It is not known why it is located several meters below the nearby buildings of Set I. Osirion was erected in the technique of the so-called megalithic masonry . The entire building is made of huge monolithic blocks of granite . The stone is carefully processed, the blocks are fitted to each other without the slightest gap. Such a construction technique has nothing to do with the one used in the construction of the memorial temple of Seti I.

Due to the fact that Osirion is naturally filled with water, this makes it impossible to create bas-reliefs on the surface of its walls ^[3] .

Initially, Osirion was covered with a mound surrounded by rows of trees. The entrance was located on the western side of the structure. From there, a long corridor that went down led south-east into a rectangular chamber with a small room behind it. On the walls were painted the “Book of the Caves” on the northeast side and the “Book of the Gate” on the opposite wall. Both monuments describe the night journey of the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra through the underworld. During the reign of Merneptah at the southern end of the corridor, paintings began to be depicted in the form of bas-reliefs ^[4] .

Other bas-reliefs of the Merneptah era are also located in a rectangular chamber adjacent to it, a corridor leading northeast of the chamber, on the back wall and architraves of a transversely located hall in front of the main hall surrounded by a moat. The corridor from the entrance chamber to the first temple hall, as well as the corridor already described, is directed downward, so that the underground moat of the temple could be filled with groundwater. Currently, the entire floor of the temple of Osirion is under water. From the first hall, built of red granite blocks, the gate with the still-preserved bridge led into the main hall with large pylons arranged in two rows of five on an artificial island surrounded by water. Thus, Osirion had the usual arrangement of the Temple Book, the structure of Egyptian temple complexes, each of which included a sacred mound.

From the center of the temple, steps led north-east and south-west down to the moat. Between them on the artificial island are two depressions, one rectangular and the other square. Perhaps they were intended for the sarcophagus and canopy . Sixteen niches were arranged in the outer walls around the moat, six on the long sides and two at the entrance to the hall and in the wall opposite it. In the center of the latter, a low door led to a transverse hall located below, which had no other entrances. High reliefs on the ceilings and walls depict the Book of Nut and the Book of Night, framed by two images of the sky goddess, Nut . The door to this last hall is so low that it is completely flooded with water in the main hall, perhaps this was planned during the construction of the moat surrounding the central part of the temple ^[5] .

The roof of Osirion is currently preserved only in the form of several fragments, so earlier the underground temple complex is clearly visible from above. The majestic monumental building demonstrates the importance of Osiris in Abydos , which was also considered one of the burial places of Osiris.

Cosmological texts from the Books of Heaven and the designations of the constellations ("deans") were applied to the walls and ceiling. The north, south, and east walls are so ruined that reading is no longer possible. Fragments of the Book of the Earth can still be identified on the western wall. The ceiling covers the sarcophagus hall in the west and the embalming hall in the east. In its western half, the Book of Nut is depicted, while in the eastern half, the Book of Night is represented.

In the southern room near the eastern, southern and western walls, the “Spell of 12 Sarcophagi” is installed, which is the 168th chapter of the Book of the Dead . The accompanying vignette shows the three phases of the sun god Ra already documented in the texts of the pyramids . Already in the oldest evidence of the reign of Amenhotep II, the “7 tombs” are no longer available as text. Only in Osirion an attempt was made to schematically restore the tombs as a whole.

In the years 1902-1903, Flinders Petrie gave his wife Hilda the leadership of the excavations in Abydos. The excavations involved Margaret Alice Murray , whose knowledge of religious texts was important for copying, as well as the artist Miss F. Hanzard with the skills of sketching reliefs. These three women took upon themselves all the necessary aspects of work. Last season, St. George Caulfield (Algernon St. George Thomas Caulfield) partially excavated a long corridor inside the walls. After the masses of sand had been removed, a gigantic furrow resembling a natural gorge opened.

The device of this extensive hypogee allowed with sufficient confidence to suggest the presence of another underground structure under it, although the depth at which it was supposed to be allowed to dig out only a small part of it. A feature of the desert is that under a layer of 60 - 120 cm of sand deposited by the wind is a solid marl . This breed is rock solid. Ancient builders used this feature by carving corridors and halls with steep, almost vertical walls, and then covering them with large stone slabs as a roof and filling the indentation with sand above. Thus, the entire structure was imperceptible from the outside and well camouflaged. Therefore, researchers had to dig test mines inside the temple fence, and all of them, without exception, showed that the marl was cut vertically so that it could be built below.

After three unsuccessful attempts, during which nothing was found but sand, several large blocks of sandstone were found at a depth of five meters. In addition, Margaret Alice Murray also found something similar to a door, after which a few meters stumbled upon the floor of a room. After the cartouche of Merneptah was discovered, it became clear to everyone that a structure had been opened, analogues to which are not yet known in Egypt. Subsequently, the "Great Hall" and an inclined corridor were discovered. Since then, Margaret Murray is considered the "discoverer of Osirion ^[6] ."

“We spent three weeks finding a place where the roof could be, and we were misled by the rectangular turns that seemed to us to form an access to it. Now we know that these “bends” were carved into the rock as supporting structures for rooms and halls. We hoped to find the place where the roof is still preserved. For several days I carried candles and matches with me, preparing to slip into the passage if it was wide enough - but they were never needed. During all these excavations, something unexpected happened all the time. If we were planning to find a corridor, we found rooms and halls, if we were planning to find a completely preserved roof, the roof turned out to be completely removed, if we were planning to find a burial place, we found an altar structure. ” - Margaret Alice Murray: The Osireion at Abydos ^[7]

When the excavation season came to an end, they could not continue research. In addition, Flinders Petrie believed that the BSAE (British School or Archeology in Egypt) did not have enough funds for such large-scale work as removing the entire mass of sand and stones to a depth of about 40 feet (9.50 m) throughout the structure. Therefore, he hoped that archaeologists led by Gaston Maspero would agree to dig up and preserve this unique hypogeus of Osiris as part of a grandiose temple, which was already one of the main attractions of Egypt. However, the wait lasted until 1914, when Edward Naville could not again excavate the Egyptian Research Society at this site, and ultimately until 1925, when Henry Frankfort unearthed Osirion in its current form using a steam engine.

“I was able to copy only a small part of the inscriptions, because although we cleared the corridor to the base, for two days a strong wind again covered it with sand. All excavations were significantly delayed by intense sandstorms, which sometimes brought in half a ton of sand and stones. Sitting in a pit under an irregular but continuous fire of small stones, risking being hit by a larger stone, is an experience that is funny only in memories. ”

- Margaret Alice Murray: The Osireion at Abydos ^[8]

Flinders Petrie gave this archaeological site the name Osirion.

• Osiris
• The myth of Osiris

• Photo sketch of Osirion in Abydos ( YouTube video )
• Egypt: Osirion (LAI d / f on YouTube)
• Lageplan Osireion // lesphotosderobert.com
• Südraum (Zugangskorridor) // lesphotosderobert.com
• Westwand der Halle // lesphotosderobert.com
• Sarkophag-Raum : Nutbuch // lesphotosderobert.com
• Sir William Flinders Petrie, Margaret Alice Murray: The Osirion at Abydos (Abtu) // Egyptian Research Account, 190

• Hans Bonnet : Osireion. In: Lexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte. Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , S. 567f.
• Alexandra von Lieven : Grundriss des Laufes der Sterne - Das sogenannte Nutbuch. The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (ua), Kopenhagen 2007, ISBN 978-87-635-0406-5 , S. 9.