Murray, Margaret Alice: The Osireion at Abydos (London, 1904)

THE GREAT HALL.

15

number, brimstone and smoke of fire coming forth
from their mouth." (Robinson. Copt: Apoc. Gospels,

P- *57-)

2. Osiris Unnefer, literally, the Good Being.

One of the many names of Osiris, but which appears
to have come into common use only in the XlXth
Dynasty; from that time onwards it was the chief
appellative of the god. This name greatly impressed
the classical authors who write on the subject.
Hermes Trismegistos (I quote from Menard's trans-
lation) says, when speaking of Unnefer, " Dieu est le
Bien et n'est pas autre chose. Dieu et le Bien sont
une seule et meme chose et le principe de toutes les
autres. Dieu est le Bien et le Bien est Dieu. Le
Bien agit par le moyen dusoleil, le Bien est le principe
createur." Plutarch says, " Osiris is a good being ;
the word itself, among its various other significa-
tions, importing a benevolent and beneficent power,
as does likewise that other name of Omphis [Onnofris,
Unnefer], by which he is sometimes called." The
word Unnefer has been noticed as still in use in
our own times. It was the name of a Coptic saint ;
thence it passed to Spain under the form of San
Onnofrio, after whom a town in Mexico was called,
from which town the mineral " onofrite " takes its
name.

3. Osiris, the Living One.

4. Osiris, Lord of Life.

In papyri which contain this chapter, these titles
are, Ankhy, "The Living One," and Neb Ankh,
" The Lord of Life." A difficulty here is that both
these titles, which are almost entirely destroyed, begin
with Ankh. There is no reason to suppose that the
name Ankhy was twice repeated ; it is almost cer-
tainly a mistake either of the scribe or the sculptor,
one or both of whom were very careless, as the rest
of the inscription shows.

5. Osiris-em-zer. A very common title of Osiris
is Neb-er-zer, " Lord to the Boundary," i.e., The
Universal Lord, of which this appears to be merely a
variant.

6. Osiris, chief of the town of Pu. Here, again,
is a mistake of the sculptor, for the papyri give
Khenty (chief) instead of Khen. Pe, or Pu as it is
written here, is the Buto of the Greeks, a very cele-
brated and holy city in the marshes of the Delta. •
It seems to have been a double town, part being
called Pe and part Dep; or possibly the temple, and
not the town, had the double name. The city was
held sacred because it was there that Isis fled to
bring up her son Horus after the death of Osiris.

Hidden in the midst of the marshes the mother and
child were safe from the fury of their enemy Set, the
murderer of Osiris, and it was in this secure retreat
that Horus remained till he at last came forth as the
" Avenger of his Father," to do battle with the Power
of Evil.

7. Osiris Orion. From early times Osiris was
identified with the constellation Orion. In the
Pyramid texts Pepy says, " Osiris comes to thee as
Orion, lord of wine, in the good festival of Uag ; he
to whom his mother said, ' Become flesh ' ; he to
whom his father said, " Be conceived in heaven, be
born in the Duat,' and who was conceived in heaven
with Orion, who was born in the Duat with Orion

. ■.....O Pepy, thou who art that great star which

leans upon Orion, go in heaven with Orion, journey

in the Duat with Osiris......Pepy has come,

and he honours Orion; he introduces Osiris in his
place."

8. Osiris Sepa. This very curious epithet has a
centipede as its proper determinative. It is the title
of the mutilated Osiris whose body was torn to
pieces. It is sometimes found with the determina-
tive of the backbone, and is there often translated as
"Relic." Brugsch {Diet, gcog., 190) quotes from a
text, of which he gives neither date nor place, which
mentions " the sceptre, the whip, and the glorious
Sepa'' (with the determinative of the backbone) as
relics of Osiris.

9. Osiris in Tanent (see III, 6).

10. Osiris .... Meht-Ner. I cannot attempt to
translate this title, which in other texts is given as

Mehenet, but here it is quite distinctly.....meht-

Ner, with the determinative of a vulture.

11. Osiris, the Golden One (?) of Millions of Years.

12. Osiris, the Double Soul of the Image. The
Saite recension gives Erpeti, the Two Princesses,
i.e. Isis and Nephthys, instead of Erpct, the Image.

13. Osiris-Ptah, Lord of Life. This is a common
title of Ptah, who, as the triple god, Ptah-Sokar-
Osiris, was the god of the resurrection as well as of
death.

14. Osiris, Chief of Restau. The literal meaning
of Restau is Mouth of the Passages, meaning the
Grave. All gods of the dead bear this title.

15. Osiris, chief of [or, upon] the hill-country. As
Egypt was essentially a flat country, all foreign
lands were, in contradistinction, supposed to be hilly.
This title therefore shows the dominion of Osiris over
foreign countries.

16. Osiris Anzety. Mr. Griffith has given an