teristic feature of the Egyptian conception of life after
death.

The Osiris story as it can be pieced together from the pyramid
texts [See A. Erman: _Die Aegyptische Religion_, p. 38 ff.] was
briefly thus: Keb, the earth-god, and Nut, the goddess of the
sky, had four children,--Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys,--
who were thus paired in marriage. Keb gave Osiris his dominion,
the earth, and made him the god of the earth, and he ruled justly
and powerfully. Seth, his brother, was jealous, and by treachery
enticed Osiris into a box, which he closed and threw into the
water. Isis sought for the body of her husband until she found it,
and Isis and Nephthys, her sister, sat at his head and feet and
bewailed him. Re, the greatest of the gods, heard Isis's
complaint; his heart was touched, and he sent Anubis to bury
Osiris. Anubis re-joined his separated bones, bound him with
cloths, and prepared him for burial,--that is, mummified him.
This is the form in which Osiris is represented,--as a mummy.
Isis then fanned her wings, and the air from her wings caused the
mummy to live. His life on earth, however, was over, could not be
recalled, so that his new life could only be passed in the other
world, the world of the dead. Here Osiris became king, as he had
been king on earth. But Isis conceived from the dead-living
Osiris, bore a child in secret, and suckled him, hidden in a
swamp. When the child, the sun-god Horus, grew up, he fought
against Seth to recover his father's kingdom, and to avenge his
death. Both gods were injured in the fight. Horus lost an eye.
But Thoth intervened, separated the fighters, and healed their
wounds. Thoth spat upon the eye of Horus and it became whole.
Horus, however, gave his eye to Osiris to eat, and thereby Osiris
became endowed with life, soul, and power (i.e. in the underworld).
But Seth disputed the legitimacy of the birth of Horus, and the
great gods held a court in the house of Keb. In this court,
justice was done, the truth of Horus's claims was established,
and he was placed on the throne of his father. Osiris became
the ruler in the land of the dead, Horus in the land of the
living.

The kernel of the story appears to be this: Osiris is the god of
the earth, and his life is the life of the vegetation, dying and
reviving with the course of the seasons, mourned by his wife Isis
and succeeded by his son Horus, the sun-god. It is apparently a
form of the common Tammuz or