Osiris, god of the Underworld

ca. 1085-730 BCE

The greatest god and inescapable divinity, Osiris, reigned over the kingdom of the dead. According to Egyptian myth, he was the first pharaoh on earth. When he ruled over Egypt in ancestral times, his envious brother Seth murdered him and cut him up into pieces. Fortunately, his wife Isis, with the aid of her sister Nephthys and the god Anubis, succeeded in gathering the pieces together and then bringing Osiris back to life to generate their son Horus. As on this statuette, Osiris is often depicted in his shroud with arms crossed and eyes open as a pledge of the rebirth he symbolises.