Osiris was trapped Without enough air to breathe the king soon died Seth dumped the chest into the Nile River He hoped that it would sink to the bottom But instead it floated all the way to the Mediterranean Sea The king's wife Isis wanted to give her husband a proper burial Without it he could not move into the afterlife She set off in search of CLEOPATRA AND ISIS By the year 332 BCE Greek rulers led Egypt Cleopatra was a popular Greek queen who ruled Egypt She often dressed and acted like the goddess Isis This was no accident The more the ancient Egyptians related her to the goddess the more powerful she became as a ruler Many of her subjects believed the queen was in fact Isis reborn the chest After much searching Isis finally found the chest But Seth was waiting when she returned to Egypt He watched as she hid Seth was the primary god of Upper Egypt in the south
the chest in the marshes along the river And as soon as she left he retrieved it Seth was determined to keep Isis from burying her husband Trying to sink the chest had not worked So he decided to separate the king's body into pieces He thought scattering the remains would ensure that the queen could never find every piece But she did not give up She hunted down all the pieces She gave each one a sacred burial of its own This allowed Osiris's soul to move into the afterlife There he became the king of the dead Then Isis gave birth to Horus Osiris's son Horus was the rightful heir to the throne This fact would likely make him Seth's next victim Isis hid Horus from Seth until Horus grew up Then Horus was able to take his father's place on the throne EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY This myth of Osiris is one of many stories in Egyptian mythology Stories like this one tell us how the ancient Egyptians depicted Isis left and Osiris center on their coffins
