He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail.

[13][14] Through the hope of new life after death, Osiris began to be associated with the cycles in nature, in particular the sprouting of vegetation and the annual flooding of the Nile River, as well as the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year.

Most information available on the Osiris myth is derived from allusions in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", and much later, in the narratives of Greek authors including Plutarch[17] and Diodorus Siculus.

The accoutrements of the shepherd, the crook and the flail – once insignia of the Delta god Andjety, with whom Osiris was associated – support this theory.

[citation needed] Several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name; as Egyptologist Mark J. Smith notes, none are fully convincing.

[19] Most take wsjr as the accepted transliteration, following Adolf Erman: However, recently alternative transliterations have been proposed: Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown, which is similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side.

The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherd's whip, fly-whisk, or association with the god Andjety of the ninth nome of Lower Egypt proposed.

[15] He was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green (the color of rebirth) or black (alluding to the fertility of the Nile floodplain) in mummiform (wearing the trappings of mummification from chest downward).

[27] The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with the sun god amongst the stars.

The Nile supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetable regeneration) who died only to be resurrected, represented continuity and stability.

Osiris' wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tamarisk tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast.

Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris was described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts of civilization, including agriculture, then travelled the world with his sister Isis, the satyrs, and the nine muses, before finally returning to Egypt.

[13] The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set.

According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who "beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders....

Although it is attested to be a part of the rituals by a version of the Papyrus Jumilhac, in which it took Isis 12 days to reassemble the pieces, coinciding with the festival of ploughing.

Plutarch mentions that (for much later period) two days after the beginning of the festival "the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water...and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected).

Yet his accounts were still obscure, for he also wrote, "I pass over the cutting of the wood" – opting not to describe it, since he considered it as a most sacred ritual (Ibid.

Molds were made from the wood of a red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, the cakes of "divine" bread were made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god with the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead (XVII).

The idea of divine justice being exercised after death for wrongdoing during life is first encountered during the Old Kingdom in a Sixth Dynasty tomb containing fragments of what would be described later as the Negative Confessions performed in front of the 42 Assessors of Ma'at.

If they led a life in conformance with the precepts of the goddess Ma'at, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the kingdom of Osiris.

[48][49] During the reign of Seti I, Osiris was also invoked in royal decrees to pursue the living when wrongdoing was observed but kept secret and not reported.

Writing about 400 years after the fact, Plutarch claimed that Ptolemy I established the cult after dreaming of a colossal statue at Sinope in Anatolia.

[53] The cult of Isis and Osiris continued at Philae until at least the 450s CE, long after the imperial decrees of the late 4th century that ordered the closing of temples to "pagan" gods.