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Religious Uses: Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian: Osiris

Rise up from non-existence, O prostrate one! They watch over thy head at the exalted horizon. Thou overthrowest thine enemies; thou triumphest over what they do against thee, as Horus, the avenger of his father, this Osiris (The deceased was identified with Osiris.) has commanded to be done for thee. Thou cuttest off the heads of thine enemies; never shall they carry off from thee thy head (?). Verily Osiris maketh slaughter at the coming forth of the heads of his enemies; may they never remove his head from him. Of all these amulets, the type most frequently encountered has the shape of a heart, ab. These are found of carnelian, green jasper, basalt, lapis-lazuli, and other hard materials. The heart, regarded in ancient Egypt as the seat of life, was the object of especial care after death. Enclosed in a special receptacle it was buried with the mummy, and the belief was that only after it had been weighed in the balance of the underworld, against the symbol of law, could it regain its place in the body of the deceased. The heart was symbolically represented by the scarab. (Budge, "The Mummy," Cambridge, 1894.) A fine example of a heart amulet shows on one side the figure of the goddess Neith with the pennu bird or phoenix, an emblem of the resurrection, and bears inscribed the chapter of the heart. (Birch, Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities in Alnwick Castle, London, 1880.) The following extract from the Book of the Dead treats of the formula to be recited over a funeral scarab cut from a hard stone, perhaps the lapis-lazuli. Egyptian tradition assigned this chapter to the reign of Semti, the fifth king of the 1st Dynasty, about 4400 B.C. (Pierret, "Le livre des Morts," Paris, 1882.) Chapter of not allowing a man's heart to oppose him in the divine regions of the nether world.

My heart which came from my mother, my heart necessary for my existence on earth, do not rise up against me, do not testify as an adversary against me among the divine chiefs in regard to what I have done before the gods; do not separate from me before the great lord of Amenti. Hail to thee, O heart of Osiris, dwelling in the West! Hail to you, gods of the braided beard, august by your sceptre! Speak well of the Osiris N; make him prosper by Nehbka. I am reunited with the earth, I am not dead in Amenti. There I am a pure spirit for eternity.

To be said over a scarabaeus fashioned from a hard stone, coated with gold, and placed on the heart of the man after he has been anointed with oil. The following words should be said over him as a magic charm: "My heart which came from my mother, my heart is necessary for me in my transformations." Take your aliments, pass around the turquoise basin, and go to him who is in his temple and from whom the gods proceed.

The most ancient inscription of this especially favorite text is on the plinth of a scarab in the British Museum bearing the cartouche of Sebak-em-saf, a king of the XIV Dynasty, 2300 B.C. It is made from an exceptionally fine piece of green jasper, the body and head of the beetle being carefully carved out of the stone, while the legs are of gold, carved in relief. The scarab is inserted into a gold base of tabloid form, and was found at Kurna (Thebes) by Mr. Salt. As green jasper was believed to possess altogether exceptional virtues as an amulet, this particular scarab was probably regarded as especially sacred.

It appears to have been the rule to engrave certain special chapters of the Book of the Dead, among those referring to the heart, upon particular stones. Thus, for instance, the 26th chapter was engraved on lapis-lazuli, the 27th upon feldspar, the 30th upon serpentine, and the 29th upon carnelian. ("Life Work of Sir Peter le Page Renouf," Paris, 1907, vol. iv, note.) This may perhaps have been originally due to some association of the god principally invoked in the text with the precious substance upon which the text was engraved.

The form of an eye, fashioned out of lapis-lazuli and ornamented with gold, constituted an amulet of great power; it was inscribed with the 140th chapter of the Book of the Dead. On the last day of the month Mechir, an offering "of all things good and holy" was to be made before this symbolic eye, for on that day the supreme god Ra was believed to place such an image upon his head. Sometimes these eyes were made of jasper, and could then be laid upon any of the limbs of a mummy. (Ibid., Paris, 1907.) Of the image of Truth, made from a lapis-lazuli and worn by the Egyptian high-priest, AElian aptly says that he would prefer the judge should not bear Truth about with him, fashioned and expressed in an image, but rather in his very soul. (AEliani, "Varia historia," lib. xiv, cap. xxxiv, Lug. Bat., 1731, Pars altera.) Among the Assyrian texts giving the formulae for incantations and various magical operations, there is one which treats of an ornament composed of seven brilliant stones, to be worn on the breast of the king as an amulet; indeed, so great was the virtue of these stones that they were supposed to constitute an ornament for the gods also. The text, as rendered by Fossey, is as follows: (Fossey, "La Magie Assyrienne," Paris, 1902; see Rawlinson, "Cun. insc. of West. Asia," vol. iv, 18, No. 3.) Incantation. The splendid stones! The splendid stones! The stones of abundance and of joy. Made resplendent for the flesh of the gods. The hulalini stone, the sirgarru stone, the hulalu stone, the sandu stone, the uknu stone. The dushu stone, the precious stone elmeshu, perfect in celestial beauty. The stone of which the pingu is set in gold. Placed upon the shining breast of the king as an ornament. Azagsud, high-priest of Bel, make them shine, make them sparkle! Let the evil one keep aloof from the dwelling! The names of two of these gems, the hulalu and the hulalini, suggest that they were of similar class. As the fundamental meaning of the root whence the names are formed is "to perforate," it is barely possible that we have here the long-sought Assyrian designation for the pearl, which was commonly regarded in ancient times as a stone. In Arabic the perforated pearl has a special name to distinguish it from the unperforated, or "virgin pearl." All we know of the sandu is that it must have been a dark-colored stone. The uknu, however, is almost certainly the lapis-lazuli. It is often mentioned in the Tel el Amarna tablets as having been among the gifts sent by the kings of Babylonia and Assyria to the Pharaohs of Egypt, and also by the latter to friendly Asiatic monarchs. Of the sirgarru and dushu stones nothing is known, but the elmeshu, the seventh in the list, was evidently regarded as the most brilliant and splendid of all; indeed, Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch hazards the conjecture that it is the diamond. In any case this stone must have been set in rings and considered very valuable, for in an Assyrian text occurs the following passage: "Like an elmeshu ring may I be precious in thine eyes." (Delitsch, "Assyrisches Worterbuch," Leipzig, 1896, s. v. elmeshu.) The fact that this stone is described as having "a celestial beauty" might incline us to believe that it was a sapphire.

The idea of this mystic ornament, composed of seven gems, probably originated in Babylonia, where the number seven was looked upon as especially sacred. As we shall see, there is some reason to attribute a Hindu origin to the nine gems, "the covering" of the King of Tyre, enumerated by Ezekiel, while the breastplate on the ephod of the Hebrew high-priest, with its twelve stones, symbolizing the twelve months of the year, appears to be of later date, and seems to belong to the time of the return from the Babylonian Captivity and the building of the second temple. Certainly, the historic and prophetic books of the Old Testament know nothing of it, although the Urim and Thummim are mentioned and the elaborate description given in Exodus is generally regarded by Biblical scholars as belonging to the so-called "Priestly Codex," the latest part of the Pentateuch, gradually evolved during the Exile and given its final form in the fifth century B.C.

In the very ancient Assyrio-Babylonian epic narrative of the descent of the goddess Ishtar to Hades, the guardian of the infernal regions obliges the goddess to lay aside some part of her clothing and ornaments at each of the seven gates through which she passes. At the fifth, we are told that she stripped off her girdle of aban aladi, or stones which aided parturition. (Jansen, "Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen," Berlin, 1900.) It has been asserted, and perhaps with some reason, that of the many mineral substances supposed to possess this virtue, jade (nephrite) or jadeite was the earliest known.