in the hollow of the tree. Here, again, it is hard to imagine how the conception of a tree as tenanted by a personal being could be more plainly expressed. The image of Osiris thus made was kept for a year and then burned, exactly as was done with the image of Attis which was attached to the pine-tree. The ceremony of cutting the tree, as described by Firmicus Maternus, appears to be alluded to by Plutarch.[1] It was probably the ritual counterpart of the mythical discovery of the body of Osiris enclosed in the erica tree. We may conjecture that the erection of the Talu pillar at the close of the annual festival of Osiris[2] was identical with the ceremony described by Firmicus; it is to be noted that in the myth the erica tree formed a pillar in the King’s house. Like the similar custom of cutting a pine-tree and fastening an image to it in the rites of Attis, the ceremony perhaps belonged to that class of customs of which the bringing in the May-pole is among the most familiar. As to the pine-tree in particular, at Denderah the tree of Osiris is a conifer, and the coffer containing the body of Osiris is here represented as enclosed within the tree.[3] A pine-cone is often represented on the monuments as offered to Osiris, and a MS. of the Louvre speaks of the cedar as sprung from Osiris.[4] The sycamore and the tamarisk are also his trees. In inscriptions he is spoken of as residing in them;[5] and his mother Nut is frequently represented in a sycamore.[6] In a sepulchre
- ↑ Isis et Osiris, 21, αἰνῶ δὲ τομὴν ξύλου καί σχίσιν λίνου καί χοὰς χεομένας, διὰ πολλὰ τῶν μυστικῶν ἀναμεμῖχθαι τούτοις. Again, c. 42, τὸ δὲ ξύλον ἐν ταῖς λεγομέναις Ὀδίριδος ταφαῖς τέμνοντες κατασκευάζουσι λάρνακα μηνοειδῆ.
- ↑ See above, p. 304.
- ↑ Lefébure, Le mythe Osirien, pp. 194, 198, referring to Mariette, Denderah, iv. 66 and 72.
- ↑ Lefébure, op. cit. pp. 195, 197.
- ↑ Birch, in Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 84.
- ↑ Wilkinson, op. cit. iii. 63 sq.; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. §§ 56, 60.
