Abydos

Daily gifts were brought of every kind, animals which were sacrificed on the spot, bread, flowers, fruit, drinks, as well as perfumes, stuffs, vases, jewels, bricks or bars of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, which were all heaped up in the treasury within the recesses of the crypts.

If a dignitary of high rank wished to perpetuate the remembrance of his honors or his services, and at the same time to procure for his double the benefit of endless prayers and sacrifices, he placed by special permission a statue of himself on a votive stele in the part of the temple reserved for this purpose, in a courtyard, chamber, encircling passage, as at Karnak, or on the staircase of Osiris as in that leading up to the terrace in the sanctuary of Abydos.

He then sealed a formal agreement with the priests, by which the latter engaged to perform a service in his name, in front of this commemorative monument, a stated number of times in the year, on the days fixed by universal observance or by local custom.

For this purpose he assigned to them the annuities in kind, charges on his patrimonial estates, or in some cases, if he were a great lord, on the revenues of his fief, such as a fixed quantity of loaves and drinks for each of the celebrants, a fourth part of the sacrificial victim, a garment, frequently also lands with their cattle, serfs, existing buildings, farming implements and produce, along with the conditions of service with which the lands were burdened.

Inveterate prejudice alone could prevent us from admitting that the Egyptians of the Memphite period went to the ports of Asia and to the high Nebu by sea.

Some, at all events, of the wood required for building and for joiners' work of a civil or funereal character, such as pine, cypress, or cedar, was brought from the forest of Lebanon or those of Ammonus.

Beads of amber are still found near Abydos in the tombs of the oldest necropolis, and we may well ask how many hands they had passed through before reaching the banks of the Nile from the shores of the Baltic.

The tin used to alloy copper for making bronze, and perhaps bronze itself, entered doubtless by the same route as the amber.

There he heard that Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had sailed off to the Hellespont with his entire fleet, followed by the Athenians, and so he hastened to the assistance of their generals.

By chance he came up with his eighteen triremes at just that critical point when both parties, having joined battle with all their ships off Abydos, and sharing almost equally in victory and defeat until evening, were locked in a great struggle.

The appearance of Alcibiades inspired both sides with a false opinion of his coming.

The enemy were emboldened, and the Athenians were confounded.

For not long before this, Thrasyllus had suffered a reverse at Ephesus, and the Ephesians had erected their bronze trophy of the victory to the disgrace of the Athenians.

This was what the soldiers of Alcibiades cast in the teeth of Thrasyllus' men, vaunting themselves and their general, and refusing to share either training or quarters in camp with them.

But when Pharnabazus, with much cavalry and infantry, attacked the forces of Thrasyllus, who had made a raid into the territory of Abydos, Alcibiades sallied out to their aid, routed Pharnabazus, and pursued him till nightfall, along with Thrasyllus.

Thus the two factions were blended, and returned to their camp with mutual friendliness and delight.

Upon a sculptured granite block in the temple at Bubastis, he is represented as slaying his enemy, and upon the rocks at the mines in Sinai are two of his inscriptions.

In the temple at Abydos, however, was found a beautiful small ivory figure, a quarter of an inch in length, carved with his portrait.

It shows a thin face with an expression of unusual strength.

His one great monument is his tomb, the Pyramid at Giza, the first of the Seven Wonders of the World.

They preserve its force in fragments.

Ritual words spoken for kings, inscriptions on coffin walls, sacred monuments at Abydos, funerary images, temple rites, and literary disputes between gods.

I'll see you next time.

The full version most people know comes much later.

The dead could hope to follow a comparable path, not becoming identical to the god in every sense, but entering the blessed existence governed by him.

The story also occupied a real place in Egypt's landscape.

At Abydos, in Upper Egypt, Osiris became associated with burial, sacred presence, procession and renewal.

By the Middle Kingdom, officials built steli and memorial chapels near the ceremonial areas of the god.

There he heard that Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had sailed off to the Hellespont with his entire fleet, followed by the Athenians, and so he hastened to the assistance of their generals.

By chance he came up with his eighteen triremes at just that critical point when both parties, having joined battle with all their ships off Abydos, and sharing almost equally in victory and defeat until evening, were locked in a great struggle.

The appearance of Alcibiades inspired both sides with a false opinion of his coming.

The enemy were emboldened, and the Athenians were confounded.

For not long before this, Thrasyllus had suffered a reverse at Ephesus, and the Ephesians had erected their bronze trophy of the victory to the disgrace of the Athenians.

This was what the soldiers of Alcibiades cast in the teeth of Thrasyllus' men, vaunting themselves and their general, and refusing to share either training or quarters in camp with them.

But when Farnabasis, with much cavalry and infantry, attacked the forces of Thrasyllus, who had made a raid into the territory of Abydos, Alcibiades sallied out to their aid, routed Farnabasis, and pursued him till nightfall, along with Thrasyllus.

Thus the two factions were blended, and returned to their camp with mutual friendliness and delight.

He stands as the prototype of the great class of resurrection, gods who die, that they may live again.

His sufferings, his death, and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great mystery play at Abydos.

In that mystery play was set forth first what the Greeks call his agon, his contest with his enemy Set, then his pathos, his suffering or downfall and defeat, his wounding, his death, and his burial.

Finally his resurrection and recognition, his anagnorisis, either as himself or as his only begotten son Horus.