Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · statue

Statue of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris

Description

Divine images, powerful symbols, and sacred words placed in the burial chamber with the deceased helped ancient Egyptians transition from the earthly realm to the afterlife. This funerary statue, owned by a woman named Asetirdis (“Isis is the one who gave her”), depicts the god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. A composite of Ptah (a creator god), Sokar (the patron deity of the necropolis west of Memphis), and Osiris (the ruler of the underworld), Ptah-Sokar-Osiris’s purview encompassed all phases of life, including rebirth. Shown in a mummified form, his red wrappings are covered in an intricate net of beads painted in blue, black, and yellow. A cavity in the statue’s base was designed to hold a papyrus scroll inscribed with funerary texts or another sacred object to facilitate Asetirdis’s rebirth after death.

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1

English description

Front: Words said by Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners, the Great God, Lord of Abydos, that he may give offerings to the Hathor, Osiris-ir-des, daughter of Wsim-nechen (?) true of voice. Back: [A gift that the king gives] to Osiris, Foremost of the Westermers, the Great God, Lord of Abydos, that he may give invocation offerings consisting of bread, beer, and every good and pure thing upon which the god lives, [to] the Hathor, Osiris-ir-des, daughter of Wsim-nechen (?), true of voice.

Connections

Deities Ptah Osiris Isis

Cross-references (1)

ARTIC-id 160171 tier-2

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.