Abstract
As the deity of cyclical phenomena and, thus, of the hope of rebirth beyond death in Egyptian thought, the god Osiris is omnipresent in the Theban necropolis, one of the largest and most famous of the New Pharaonic Empire (ca. 1550-1080 B.C.), a Unesco World Heritage site. This presentation will examine the ways in which this god, essential to Egyptian thanatology, is represented in the tombs of the private necropolis of Thebes during the 18th dynasty. Above all, it will consider these representations from an art-historical perspective, i.e. as images that have a life of their own, and are part of a social dynamic among the living who commission, shape and use these images. The aim is to explore what we can learn from this abundant iconography.
Knowledge of ancient Egyptian essential.
