A
boy scattered the seed. One end of the field was sown with barley,
the other with spelt, and the middle with flax. During the operation
the chief celebrant recited the ritual chapter of "the sowing of the
fields." At Busiris on the twentieth of Khoiak sand and barley were
put in the god's "garden," which appears to have been a sort of
large flower-pot. This was done in the presence of the cow-goddess
Shenty, represented seemingly by the image of a cow made of gilt
sycamore wood with a headless human image in its inside. "Then fresh
inundation water was poured out of a golden vase over both the
goddess and the 'garden,' and the barley was allowed to grow as the
emblem of the resurrection of the god after his burial in the earth,
'for the growth of the garden is the growth of the divine
substance.'" On the twenty-second of Khoiak, at the eighth hour, the
images of Osiris, attended by thirty-four images of deities,
performed a mysterious voyage in thirty-four tiny boats made of
papyrus, which were illuminated by three hundred and sixty-five
lights.
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