Religion in the ancient Egypt

Osiris

   The king, together with the gods whom Egyptian belief associated with him, stood at the pinnacle of Egyptian religion. Egypt thus offers another example of the political power of religion in organizing early societies. Other gods, who occupied lesser positions in Egyptian religion, appeared in a variety of forms, often as animals, and in origin were probably deities of the villages up and down the Nile. The Egyptians believed in a pleasant life after death, in which people would perform their usual tasks but with more success. The king, already a god, would become a greater god; soothsayers, priests, and administrators would hold even higher positions. For everyone who had lived a good life, there would be delights such as boating and duck hunting.
   In Egyptian mythology, the god who ruled over the dead was Osiris, originally a god of fertility. He had given Egypt its laws and taught the peo­ple how to prosper. But legend told that he was murdered by his treacherous brother and his body cut into fragments, which his loving wife as well as sister, Isis, reassembled, thus resurrecting him.
   Osiris' son, Horus, was identified with the king, who was considered the incarnation of Horus on earth and the center of the world.
   In harmony with their expectation of survival beyond death, the Egyptians made careful preparations for the physical needs of the afterlife, especially by placing favored possessions such as jewelry and wine cups into a tomb and embalming and making mummies of the dead. Statues sat in the tombs of kings as receptacles for their spirits in case their bodies should be destroyed.