Statuette of Osiris

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Osiris is most often represented as a shrouded mummy, emphasizing his connection with the dead. He holds a flail and a short shepherd’s crook, insignia associated with Egyptian kingship, and wears a long, braided beard, emblematic of divinity. On the front of his tall crown is a uraeus, a cobra ready to spit fire at his enemies. The horns may link him with the sun god, who often appears as a ram-headed man at the end of the day and during the night. By the first millennium B.C., statues and statuettes of Osiris were offered in profusion, reflecting both the importance of the god and a shift in how the ancient Egyptians performed certain rituals. Some of the places where statues of Osiris have been found can be identified as temples and shrines belonging to him, but they have also been found as offerings in contexts where explanations are not evident. This example is unusually large, though not the largest known in bronze.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art