Ozirisz 104 amulettje Denderában

The 104 amulets of Osiris are only described in the innermost western chapel of the god at Dendera, and their number does not tally with any other listings of funerary amulets. The peculiar number of amulets can be explained if the timeline of the Osiris mysteries is reconstructed from the inscriptions in the roof chapels at Dendera, and from Plutarch’s account of the myth of Osiris. Discussing the agricultural aspect of the myth, Plutarch relates that Osiris comes back to life when the corn sown in the earth begins to sprout on II Akhet 6, which event also signals the conception of Isis from her husband. The Dendera inscriptions, on the other hand, record that the corn specially cultivated for the mysteries is harvested on I Peret 20, thus ending the god’s life in his vegetal manifestation. Exactly 104 days elapse between these two dates, suggesting that the 104 amulets of Osiris at Dendera are intended to transfer the vegetal life force of the sacred corn onto the god’s lifeless, originally verdant, effigy kept for one year in the innermost western room. Since the date of II Akhet 6 also coincided with a significant astronomical event, the disappearance of the moon after the autumnal equinox, in the year when the mysteries best aligned with the overall seasonal changes (52 BCE), the presence of the 104 amulets indicates that the Ptolemaic priests, besides recording ancient traditions, were also enriching the mysteries of Osiris with new details. Their innovative approach provides further proof for the fact that they regarded the myth of Osiris as their own, as an integral part of their culture that was still very much alive and possibly capable of reasserting or strengthening Egyptian identity during foreign rule.