This statuette represents Osiris, the god of the dead. He is immediately recognizable by the mummy wrappings that envelop his body, exposing only his head and hands; his tall crown with uraeus; the long, curved, plaited false beard; and the crook and flail.^[1] Although these elements are associated with Osiris there are many variations in the representation of the god.1

Here, he wears the plumed atef crown with horizontal horns. A uraeus sits on his brow. The body of the serpent is shown as a loop behind the hood and rises as an undulating line up the middle of the crown. The god’s broad collar is beautifully detailed, and a tassel-shaped counterpoise for the collar is shown between his shoulders. His wide bracelets are detailed with incised lines. He holds a flail with its three tails of beads in his right hand and a crook in his left.^[2] The crook is detailed with horizontal lines. It has a long handle that extends at an angle below the god’s fist. Although of uncertain symbolism, this type of crook appears, with very few exceptions, only when the god’s hands are positioned right above left.^[3]2

Additional Views of Cat. 28

The Chicago statuette is an example of one of the most common versions of Osiris in copper alloy, characterized by the shroud, the hands positioned right above the left, and the long, bent handle of the crook. Such figures may wear the White Crown or the atef crown, with or without horns.^[4] This style of figurine appeared in the Third Intermediate Period and continued through the Late Period.^[5] In this case, the statuette stands on a rectangular base. A tang on the underside allowed it to be attached to a larger base which is now lost.
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Use of Osiris Figurines in Cult Devotions

Countless numbers of figurines of Osiris in bronze/copper alloy, stone, wood, baked and unbaked clay, and other materials were produced during the first millennium BCE because the worship of the god involved the deposition of figures of him in cult places. The ʿAyn Manâwir cache in Kharga Oasis contained 370 figurines of Osiris; the Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara yielded 486 Osiris figurines; and at Medinet Habu in Western Thebes, a hole in the ground near the Eastern High Gate, dubbed the “Osiris Grave” by the excavator, and another nearby deposit, held more than two hundred statues, almost all of which represent Osiris.^[6]4

Osiris in Egyptian Religion

Although Osiris is not attested until Dynasty 5, thereafter he became central to Egyptian theology because of his association with the most fundamental aspect of Egyptian theology—the idea of life after death. Osiris was closely tied to nature and its cyclical rebirth, expressed by the daily rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the agricultural cycles of sowing, growing, and harvesting. The relationship of Osiris to agriculture is further expressed by images of the god shown with a green face, since green is the color of plants and regeneration. Trays in the form of the god’s silhouette—called “Osiris Beds” by modern scholars—were filled with earth and grain and left in tombs to germinate, thereby producing visible evidence of the god’s power of regeneration after death.^[7] In a similar concept, small mummiform figures in the shape of Osiris were made of soil mixed with grain. These “corn mummies” were deposited in temples during the annual festival of Khoiak that honored the god.^[8] Some of these small figurines were stored in wood statues of Osiris that were placed in private tombs (see cat. 36).5

The life story of Osiris is recorded in a complex web of myths. The primary tale, most fully preserved in Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride written some 2,500 years after the appearance of the god, says that Osiris was murdered by his evil brother Seth. The myth has many colorful variations, but they all culminate in Seth dismembering Osiris and scattering the pieces of his body throughout Egypt. Osiris’s faithful wife and sister Isis gathered the pieces of his body and bound them in linen wrappings, thereby creating the prototype for a mummy. Then in an act of magic, Isis stimulated Osiris to impregnate her. She later gave birth to their son Horus, the original proof that from death may come renewed life.6

The Osiris myth also underlies the conception of the state. According to Egyptian beliefs, Osiris was the first king of Egypt. He was succeeded by his son Horus. Every king after Horus was considered to be the “Horus on Earth,” and the former king was identified with Osiris. Following this pattern, the kings of Egypt were regarded as an unbroken line of father and son, each Osiris followed by his son Horus, whether the kings were biologically related or not.7

For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.
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Provenance

Martin A. Ryerson (1856–1932), Chicago, 1890; transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1892.9

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 102, 105.10

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 99, no. 91.
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