Osiris (whose name is a Greek transliteration of the Egyptian
Asar) is the Egyptian god of life, death, fertility, and the
underworld. His extreme antiquity is attested to by his
inclusion in pyramid texts dated to 2400 B.C.E., when his cult
was already well established. In addition to the god's primary
mythic and religious affiliation with the land of the dead,
Osiris was also seen as the underworld agency that granted all
life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of
the Nile River. The modern understanding of these myths is
derived from representations, rites and paeans recorded in the
pyramid texts, and, much later, in the mythic narrative of
Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride ("About Isis and Osiris"). The
cult of Osiris was characterized by various parallels between
the worldly authority of the pharaohs and the celestial
authority of the god: just as the human monarch ruled the
fertile lands of the Nile delta, so too did Osiris reign over
the land of the dead. As such, he became a protect