It is quite easy to see how, with this origin, Osiris would almost inevitably grow with time to be the King of the Dead, and supreme judge of the nether regions. For, as the most sacred of the ancestors of the regal line, he would naturally be the one whom the kings, in their turn, would most seek to propitiate, and whom they would look forward to joining in their eternal home. As the myth extended, and as mystical interpretations began to creep in, identifications being made of the gods with the sun or other natural energies, the original meaning of Osiris-worship would grow gradually obscured. But to the last, Osiris himself, in spite of all corruptions, is represented {169}as a mummy: and even when identified with Amen, the later intrusive god, he still wears his mummy-bandages, and still bears the crook and scourge and sceptre of his primitive kingship. It may be objected, however, that there were many forms of Orisis, and many local gods who bore the same name. He was buried at Abydos, but was also equally buried at Memphis, and at Philæ as well. The pretty little “Temple on the Roof” at Denderah is an exquisitely elaborate chapel to the local Osiris of that town, with chambers dedicated to the various other Osiris-gods of the forty-two nomes of ancient Egypt. Well, that fact runs exactly parallel with the local Madonnas and the local Apollos of other religions: and nobody has suggested doubts as to the human reality of the Blessed Virgin Mary because so many different Maries exist in different sacred sites or in different cathedrals. Our Lady of Loretto is the same as Our Lady of Lourdes. Jesus of Nazareth was nevertheless born at Bethlehem: he was the son of Joseph, but he was also the son of David, and the son of God. Perhaps Osiris was a common noun: perhaps a slightly different Osiris was worshipped in various towns of later Egypt; perhaps a local mummy-god, the ancestor of some extinct native line, often wrongly usurped the name and prerogatives of the great mummy-god of Abydos, especially under the influence of late priestly mysticism. Moreover, when we come to consider the subject of the manufacture of gods, we shall see that the body of an annual incarnation of Osiris may have been divided and distributed among all the nomes of Egypt. It is enough for my present purpose if I point out in brief that ancestor-worship amply explains the rise and prevalence of the cult of Osiris, the kingly mummy, with the associated cults of Horus, Isis, Thoth, and the other deities of the Osirian cycle.