Without attempting to trace all the
particularities of local usage I shall briefly indicate what seem to
have been the leading features of the festival, so far as these can
be ascertained with tolerable certainty.
The rites lasted eighteen days, from the twelfth to the thirtieth of
the month Khoiak, and set forth the nature of Osiris in his triple
aspect as dead, dismembered, and finally reconstituted by the union
of his scattered limbs. In the first of these aspects he was called
Chent-Ament (Khenti-Amenti), in the second Osiris-Sep, and in the
third Sokari (Seker). Small images of the god were moulded of sand
or vegetable earth and corn, to which incense was sometimes added;
his face was painted yellow and his cheek-bones green. These images
were cast in a mould of pure gold, which represented the god in the
form of a mummy, with the white crown of Egypt on his head. The
festival opened on the twelfth day of Khoiak with a ceremony of
ploughing and sowing. Two black cows were yoked to the plough, which
was made of tamarisk wood, while the share was of black copper.
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