CHAPTER THREE

AN UPPER EGYPTIAN GOD OF THE ROYAL DEAD

Iconography There are two outstanding elements in the iconography of the god which confirm the interpretation of him as being originally a god of the royal dead. One is the mummified form in which he is almost always portrayed. The earliest examples, it is true, do not derive from the Old Kingdom, but this fact itself has significance, for it strongly suggests that the method of depicting the legs as closely linked together and undiscriminated from each other is not merely a feature of primitive sculpture such as one sees in early forms of Min; for instance, the huge prehistoric statues in the Ashmolean Museum. 1 It is a characteristic, rather, of the image of a mummy. There is some variety in the posture of the arms in bronze figures of the god and he is occasionally shown seated. Roeder, 2 who has published a detailed study of the bronze figures, makes it clear that he regards the mummiform shape as characteristic of the god's iconography from early times, although it has not originated in Busiris, his oldest cult-centre in the Delta. 3 He believes that this form will not have been evolved before the end of the Old Kingdom and that it is based on the general recognition of the god as god of the dead and lord of the nether world. The non-occurrence of the form in the Old Kingdom does not mean, however, that it was not coeval with the earliest phase of the cult. Roeder has been able to trace some of the varieties of posture to regional traditions. Thus a Lower Egyptian tradition shows the god with one arm over the breast and the other over the stomach; in Middle Egypt the figures show the arms held at the same level and meeting one another on the breast; in Upper Egyptian figures the arms are crossed one over the other. There is some variation, too, in the way

1 Some of Min's later forms preserve the archaic non-differentiation of the legs. See W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology (Boston, 1918), 138-139; cf. E.A. Wallis Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 1934), 62-63. 2 'Die Arme der Osiris-Mumie', in Agypto/ogische Studien ed. 0. Firchow (Grapow Festschrift, Berlin, 1955), 248-286. 3 Op. cit., 248. 86 AN UPPER EGYPTIAN GOD OF THE ROYAL DEAD the flail and crook are held. Usually the flail is in the right hand, except in the third group. 4 Some dozen typological variations are noted in other ways: (l) in the Lower Egyptian figures the enveloping gar• ment is raised like a collar behind the shoulders and neck, while in the others it is close-fitting; (2) in the Lower Egyptian figures the arms are not visible through the outer garment; while in the others the elbows are especially prominent; (3) in the Lower Egyptian figures the outer garment is depicted as being cut in front in order to make room for the hands which are elaborately discriminated; the cutting is shown only by a fine line in the Middle Egyptian type, while it is practically ignored in the others; (4) the treatment of the legs varies: in this case the Lower Egyptian figures show less of the outline than the others; ( 5) with regard to the crown there is a varied treatment of the side-feathers added to the crown of Upper Egypt; a sun-disk or ramhorn is occasionally added, or small serpents with the sun; 5 ( 6) a highly stylized form of the uraeus-serpent appears in Lower Egypt, divided into three parts; in the other figures it is simpler; (7) only in Lower Egypt is the long thin beard joined close to the neck in one mass of bronze; elsewhere it is loosened from the neck; (8) a collar is shown more often in Lower Egyptian figures, although the high outer garment leaves room for it in these only in the front; in the Upper Egyptian figure it goes right round and is often inlaid; (9) Osiris generally places the crook on his left shoulder; in the Lower Egyptian figures he holds it in his left hand but in the Upper Egyptian figures with crossed hands he holds it in his right; (l 0) correspondingly the whip is usually on the right shoulder; there are variations in the treat• ment of the handle; ( 11) in Lower Egypt a pedestal is shown under the feet, but it is absent in Upper Egypt; rings are fixed in Middle Egypt both in the back and on the pedestal, in order to hold it fast; (12) the god appears as a standing mummy in all the regions, but in Upper Egypt he is shown more often than in Lower Egypt as sitting on a throne. Roeder 6 goes on to give the typological variations in figures of stone, wood and pottery. The important common factor is that the god is conceived of as a mummy.

4 Op. cit., 249 and Pl. I facing p. 284. 5 Roeder has dealt at length with the different types of crowns in his Bronzewerke § 80-106 and Bronzejiguren § 181-218. 6 Op. cit.