Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection: A Comprehensive Two-Volume Set

The 2019 Reprint of the 1911 Edition, which was originally published in two volumes and is now bound into one, offers a new introduction by Jane Harrison. This book by E. A. Wallis Budge, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, focuses on Osiris as the single most important Egyptian deity. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the god of the beyond, and his death and resurrection brought a guarantee of an afterlife to mortals. He was a kind Pharaoh who taught his people agriculture, music, arts, and religion.

Jealous of Osiris's successful reign, his brother Seth killed him with the help of many accomplices and took control of Egypt. However, Seth's reign was foreshortened by Isis's great love for her husband and brother Osiris, whom she brought back from the dead. Osiris and Isis then conceived their beloved son, Horus. Seething in anger, Seth killed Osiris once again, this time by cutting his body to pieces and throwing them into the Nile River.

Isis, with the help of Anubis, the god with the jackal head, reconstituted Osiris's body with bandages and embalming rites, thus creating the first mummy. During this act, the god Thoth recited an incantation. Finally, Horus avenged his father Osiris in a bloody duel with Seth, in which Horus lost his eye, which was then given as a food offering to Osiris.

This book by Budge offers the most thorough explanation ever provided of Osirism. With rigorous scholarship, Budge examines every detail of the cult of Osiris, going directly to numerous Egyptian texts, making use of the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and other classical writers, as well as more recent ethnographic research in the Sudan and other parts of Africa. He also establishes a link between Osiris worship and African religions.

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