Osiris

The picture at the right is, as usual, read down the right-most column, then down the next column to the left, etc. You can hover your mouse over the boxes for the transliterations and English versions of the signs within them.

First column: "Words spoken by"
red box: "Osiris"
green box: "Leader of the Westerners"

Second column: yellow box: "Lord of the Cycles of Eternity, Ruler of Forever"

Third column: "May he give offerings"

Fourth column: "and provisions"

Fifth column: blue box: "Isis"
(the blue line points to the "st" sign which usually appears above her head)
below the blue box: "Mother of the god"

Sixth column:magenta box: "Nephthys"
(the magenta line points to the "nbt-Hwt" sign which usually appears above her head)

Last column, left of magenta box: "Sister of the god"

The only ones that you should learn right now are the two boxes in the right hand column.

The Egyptians believed that Ra was born each day at sunup and died at sundown, in the West at night. He then went to the underworld, the realm of Osiris, where he was rejuvenated while travelling eastward toward the dawn.

Just as Ra went to the west at the end of his daily life, so the Egyptians believed that all the deceased go there to descend to Osiris's realm. So, Osiris is the lord of the westerners, i.e.: the departed.

The vertical column on the coffin lid at left starts with a familiar set of glyphs at the top. It is followed by Osiris' name, which you should try to identify before your run your mouse over the image. Osiris is frequently the second item in the "Offering Formula", although other gods, as we'll see, can appear there. Below his name are several epithets which also commonly appear. Hovering your cursor over them will tell what they are and what they mean.

Because those epithets appear so frequently and usually in the same order as shown here, you should study them.

The whole column reads: "An offering which the king gives for Osiris, the Great God, Lord of Abydos". Abydos is a town in Egypt sacred to Osiris. You can tell from the ancient Egyptian version that it has borne the same name (with a few minor pronounciation changes) for thousands of years.

Padimut's beautifully painted coffin shows the names of three gods:

After the opening glyphs in the right hand column which read "Words spoken by", the red box in that column, continued into the second column contains the name of Ra-Horakhty and goes on to identify him as ""Head of the Gods"".

The green box shows the name of Atum and acknowledges that he is "Lord of the Two Lands and of Iunu". The Two Lands, of course, comprise Egypt, and Iunu, called Heliopolis by the Greeks, is a city sacred to Atum.

The entire left hand column, in the yellow box, says that Ptah-Sokar-Osiris is the Lord of Sokar's Sanctuary.