The House of Osiris
There stand in Egypt three distinctive temples like no other built in that land. These stark, unadorned and unattributable monuments are "quite alien and inexplicable to the modern eye" [Graham Hancock]. The two at Giza, the Sphinx and Valley Temples have been attributed to Khafre [reign began c.2400 BC], on very flimsy evidence. Without the benefit of inscriptions, Egyptologists relied, for the Valley Temple, on broken diorite statues of Khafre found in an antechamber. However, according to the Inventory Stela, discovered by Auguste Mariette in the 19th century, the Valley Temple "had been standing in the reign of ... Khufu, when it had been regarded as an ancient building." [Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, pg. 365]. It was called the 'House of Osiris, Lord of Rostau' [Giza], while the Great Pyramid maybe the pyramid referred to in the Stela as the one dedicated to Isis. The recently discovered 2500 year old granite sarcophagus, found near Khafre's pyramid, sat within a representation of the House of Osiris.
Regarding this pyramid, there are several limestone blocks at the base weighing a staggering 200 tons apiece, the same weight as those at the cores of the Valley and Sphinx Temple walls! These stones bear the same weathering patterns as the Sphinx. All this suggests a comparable construction date, and possibly, therefore, builder[s]. The Sphinx has been attributed to Khafre on the basis of an eroded stela between its paws. However, the erosion, according to geologist Robert Schoch, shows that the Sphinx was carved in an earlier much wetter period [c.7000-5000 BC]. Robert Bauval, based on astronomical calculations, took this back to c.10500 BC in the Age of Leo! To cover the damage on the temples granite blocks had been used. At c.70-80 tons, these stones weigh the same as those in the King's Chamber [Bauval estimated those in the ceiling to be c.30 tons each]... The stone was quarried at Aswan, 600 miles south of Giza, and probably shipped up the Nile. Clearly the same person or people had built the Great Pyramid and repaired the temples. Khufu, perhaps?
The third temple is the Oseirion, Abydos, excavated by Professor Naville and team in 1912-14. In plan it resembles the ‘stem’ of the ‘T’ of the Valley Temple. Again the central structure has rows of monolithic, rectangular granite pillars. These are 8 ft sq, 12 ft high, weigh 100 tons each. But, unlike the Giza Temples, the Oseirion’s perimeter wall is made of close-fitting polyangular blocks, not cased in them. Moreover, it is red sandstone, the same material as the plinth the columns stand on. Within the 20 ft thick wall are 17 floorless cells [the Valley Temple has alabaster paving] accessed via doorways of human height. There are 6 on each side, 3 at one end and 1 either side of a gateway. They are joined by a narrow ledge, possibly reached originally by boat, as the plinth has a moat 10 ft wide. [Steps lead down into it from either end of the plinth]. The gateway, also floorless, is built of massive sandstone and granite blocks. One block is over 25 feet long. Astronomical scenes, pottery fragments and inscriptions in the traverse chambers beyond the perimeter wall led Egyptologist to attribute the Oseirion to Seti I. Barbara Watterson in The Gods of Ancient Egypt [London, 1984] called it “a cenotaph [lit. ‘empty tomb’] for Seti ... actually buried in the Valley of the Kings” [pg.87]. The Oseirion was discovered 50 ft below Seti
What is the link with Osiris, though? You may recall from jj_amen that I said Osiris supplanted the Pre-Dynastic Wepwawet, 'Opener of the Ways', in the 5th Dynasty as chief deity at Abydos. In TGoAE I found references to the 8 day 'Osiris Mysteries' performed there "every year during the last month of the Inundation (October) when the flood waters were receding" [ibid]. Apparently a statue of Osiris was carried by a precession of priests "towards his tomb". The leading priest wore the mask of Wepwawet.
During the following 3 days the burial of Osiris, trial of his murderer [his brother Seth] and his 'rebirth' were re-enacted. The 'resurrected' Osiris returned on a barge, this "triumphant reappearance" symbolised by the raising of the djed pillar. In Amen: "Be It So" I said the djed was regarded as the "backbone of Osiris", and suggested that the King's Chamber and so-called 'weight-bearing chambers' above were this glyph in megalithic form. Without Seti's additions the Oseirion also resembles a backbone. When Osiris was murdered 14 or so parts of his dismembered body were scattered throughout Egypt. The head was claimed, by the priests in those places, to be at Memphis and Abydos! Wherever his wife, Isis, found the pieces she created wax replicas to be used as relics in local temples. This
"ensured that the worship of her husband became widespread throughout the land, from Busiris in the north...held to be the last resting place of his backbone... ."----[TGoAE, pg. 79]
Busiris, originally called Djedu [because of the symbolic djed 'backbone'], translates as 'The House of Osiris'. Watterson said this was "the oldest-known centre of the cult of Osiris" [pg. 74]. Naville, though, regarded the Oseirion as being "the most ancient stone building in Egypt." Watterson, despite linking it with Seti, may've unknowingly confirmed as much when she wrote that it was "designed to be a re-creation of the Island of Creation in the waters of the Nun" [pg. 87]. Nun was the Egyptian's Primeval Ocean from which rose a mound. This island was the birthplace of Geb [Earth] and Nut [sky] separated by Atum (sounds like Genesis, doesn't it?), I suppose their version of Adam and Eve. Could this mound have been Eden, aka Atlantis? The encircled cross, the astronomical symbol for Earth, as I said in The Device, is a representation of the Atlantean Royal City.
In conclusion, it seems that the oldest centres of Osiris worship in Egypt were Busiris, Abydos and Giza. This explains why the most strange and enigmatic structures appear in the latter two. [They remind me of Stonehenge.] The 'House of Osiris' [Bu + Us-ir] was evidently, judging by the myth, any temple connected with the discovery of the god's body. After all, don't Christians call churches 'The House of God', the body and blood of Christ symbolised in the Eucharist? Ancient religions were not unlike Catholicism in their veneration of relics and icons, as well as in their processions and ceremonial observance. The legend of Osiris and the Osiris Mysteries, with their themes of death, birth and resurrection are echoed in the story of Christ and the Medieval Passion Plays that re-enacted it.
