The Nubian Osiris: traditions and elaborations of the Osiris’s cult in the Kushite culture

While the various forms of representation and speculation on the igure of Osiris in Egypt boast a great tradition of studies, the ways in which his worship was articulated outside Egypt are often presented as a marginal aspect of the long-lasting and widespread history of his cult. Kush—the political and geographical entity raised in Nubia at the end of the Egyptian New Kingdom domination—is an intriguing terrain for investigation of divine igures and religious aspects that have undergone processes of assimilation or transformation in the transition from the Egyptian to the local culture. The kings of Twenty-ifth Dynasty started a process of acculturation combining the Egyptian and Nubian forms of materials, religion and ideology; a process resulting not just in a mere import of ready-made products, but rather in an integration and reinterpretation of the Egyptian models within indigenous traditions and cults. This mixture of elements will persist as a typical trait of the Nubian culture, throughout the Napatan and even more the Meroitic period. In fact, it is especially from the third century ψω onward that we can ind interesting solutions that express the conceptualization and representation of Osiris in the Meroitic religious apparatus. The syncretic phenomena occurring in the temples of Dodekaschoinos between Nubian, Greco-Roman and Egyptian deities, for instance, give us the opportunity to evaluate new aspects of Osiris, like his association with the Greek Dionysus and, consequently, with the Meroitic Apedemak. The aim of this paper is to analyse the archaeological and textual evidence related to the elaboration, representation and contextualization of Osiris in Nubia, with particular attention to the Meroitic record