Horus, Osiride e Iside

The Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris' murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne. Meanwhile, Osiris' wife Isis restores her husband's body, allowing him to posthumously conceive a son with her. The remainder of the story focuses on Horus, the product of Isis and Osiris' union, who is first a vulnerable child protected by his mother and then becomes Set's rival for the throne. Their often violent conflict ends with Horus' triumph, which restores order to Egypt after Set's unrighteous reign and completes the process of Osiris' resurrection. The myth, with its complex symbolism, is integral to the Egyptian conceptions of kingship and succession, conflict between order and disorder and, especially, death and the afterlife. It also expresses the essential character of each of the four deities at its center, and many elements of their worship in ancient Egyptian religion were derived from the myth.

The Osiris myth reached its basic form in or before the 24th century BCE. Many of its elements originated in religious ideas, but the conflict between Horus and Set may have been partly inspired by a regional struggle in Egypt's early history or prehistory. Scholars have tried to discern the exact nature of the events that gave rise to the story, but they have reached no definitive conclusions.