Ancient Egypt, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, ca. 1352-1336 BC. Ceramic vessel in the form of a fish, with a narrow, flared-mouthed spout projecting from the top where a fin would be...
According to the object description, "the fish depicted is a Nile carp which plays a significant role in the Osiris mythology"...
So apparently, Set, the brother of Osiris, was pissed off that Osiris was made the Pharaoh of Egypt instead of him after the death of their father Geb...
Set believed that he was the rightful heir to the throne of Egypt, and that Osiris was the usurper...So he decided to kill his brother and take what's rightfully his own...
And so he did...And after killing Osiris, Set then cut his body into bits and scattered these bits all over Egypt. Finally, he threw Osiris's penis into the river Nile, where it was promptly eaten by a Nile Carp...
Apparently, this legend explains why Nile was seen by the Ancient Egyptians as "the water of life", as "fertilising semen emanating from the severed phallus of Osiris"...
This story was reenacted every year as part of the "great mystery festival". This festival which commemorated the death and resurrection of Osiris, was celebrated at the end of the Inundation (Annual flood), on the same day that grain was planted in the ground...
One of the rituals performed during the festival was the construction of "Osiris Beds". They were originally wooden, and later ceramic containers in shape of Osiris, filled with fertile black silt brought in by the Nile river during the Inundation, and sown with barley seeds...
The germinating seeds symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. Basically rebirth of nature, and most importantly, rebirth of grain. These Osiris beds were also placed in tombs, symbolising resurrection...
Interestingly, Horus, the son and the avenger of Osiris, was the lord of the black, fertile (soil) land. While his enemy, Set, the killer of Horus's father, was the lord of the red, infertile (desert) land...
In all fairness, when we look at Egypt, we can see why Set, the lord of the desert, might have thought that he should have been the Pharaoh...It's all red desert...Except for this thing green line in the middle, the land of the black soil...
In "Isis and Osiris", Plutarch says that...[during]...the festival "the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water...and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris was found (or resurrected)...
Then they knead some fertile [black] soil with the water...and fashion therefrom a figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these Isis and Osiris as the substance of Earth and Water"...
Symbolic, right? It is this fertile black soil, the mix of Earth and Water, which every year allowed Horus (the lord of the black, fertile, Nile valley land) to defeat Set (the lord of the red infertile, desert land)...
That black soil is brought to Egypt from the southern highlands, by the the annual Nile flood, without which, Egypt wold have been swallowed by the desert, making Set, the god of the desert, the (rightful) Pharaoh of Egypt...
So what does this have to do with Nile Carp? Well, this is the annual flow chart of the river Nile. You can see that the river flow peaks during the period July-September. This is the flod that brings the black fertile soil which makes life possible in the middle of the desert...
According to the research data found in this paper "Study of Some Biological Aspects of the Nile Carp, Labeo niloticus (Pisces, Cyprinidae) from Khashm El-Girba Reservoir and Atbara River, Sudan: I Abundance; Sex Ratio; Gonado-somatic Index and Breeding Season" "gonado-somatic index of Nile Carp...starts rising in late Apr, reaches its peak between Jul and Sep, then starts to decrease decreases until February...
Translated into normal English, this means that Nile Carp mating season coincides exactly with the Nile flood...Sounds like a great candidate for an animal calendar marker?
As the water starts to rise, the carp starts to mate. And when carp mate, you know about it. The fish all come to the shallows, where males fight each other over the right to fertilise female's eggs...Lots of jumping, splashing, wallowing...And fish fucking...
Not a chance to miss this, if you were living by the river, from the river...No wonder that the Nile Carp ended up in the Osiris myth...
If anyone should eat the penis of the god of fertility, which was thrown into the Nile River, who better than Nile Carp whose copulation coincides with the annual flood, the outpouring of the "water of life" (semen) of Osiris...And the source of fertility in Egypt...
This could have been maybe stretching it a bit, if we didn't find animal (and plant) calendar markers embedded into the core of the Egyptian religion since the Pre Dynastic period...I wrote about this in my post "Markhor goat from Naqada"...
Have you ever wondered why we have all these cow mother goddesses in Egypt? Because the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle, Aurochs, which once also lived in Egypt, coincides with the beginning of the rise of the Nile...I talked about this in my post "Holy cow"...This is also the reason why we find the worship of the holy calves in Egypt too...I talked about this in my post "White calf"
Have you ever wondered why sun was worshiped as the source of life in Egypt? In the desert! Cause life giving Nile flood starts at the beginning of the hot part of the year (Apr/May), and ends at the end of the hot part of the year (Oct/Nov)...Hence Ra, the dude...
And have you ever wondered why lionesses are so important in Egyptian mythology? Cause the Nile flood peaks in Leo, which marks the beginning of the mating season of the Eurasian lions...But if the Nile doesn't flood, the season of life becomes the season of death...
Which is what is described in the stories about runaway "goddess of moisture" who got pissed off and left Egypt, bringing famine and destruction had to be "brought back" by baboons...Who mate at the beginning of the monsoon season which feeds the Nile flood...I wrote about this in my post "Baboon"...
I wrote about the monsoon season in my post "Menat" about the holy couple "Shu" (wind) and "Tefnut" (moisture) who together mean "wet wind" = eastern monsoon...
And then we have dogs and dog days, the beginning of the mating season of the old dog breeds, which coincides with the peak flood and the helical rising of Sirius...I wrote about this in my post "Dog days"...
And cats and their veneration around the time of the harvest, when rats multiply and cats give birth to lots of hungry kittens...I wrote about this in my post "Bastet"...
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