Triad of Osorkon II: Osiris, Isis and Horus

What you are looking at

Three gold figures stand on a narrow gold base. In the center, the god Osiris crouches on top of a tall pillar of deep blue lapis lazuli, wrapped like a mummy, wearing the tall atef crown with its two curling plumes and holding the false beard of divinity. To the left stands his son Horus, with the head of a falcon and the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. To the right stands Isis, Osiris's sister and wife, with the horned sun disk on her head. Horus and Isis each raise one hand, palm out, toward Osiris in a gesture of protection and adoration.

The whole object is only about 9 cm high and 6.6 cm wide. Its colors, the warm gold of the figures against the dark blue of the stone, would have read in ancient Egypt as divine flesh and the night sky.

Who was Osorkon II?

Osorkon II ruled Egypt in the ninth century BC, roughly 874–850 BC by common reckonings, as a king of the 22nd Dynasty. This dynasty was of Libyan descent and ruled from Bubastis and Tanis in the Nile Delta during the period Egyptologists call the Third Intermediate Period. The hieroglyphic inscription on the lapis pillar and the base names the king and places him under the protection of the gods shown. The object was made for him, almost certainly as a pendant or amulet; a small loop on the back suggests it could be suspended.

The myth behind the triad

The figures tell, in shorthand, the most important story in Egyptian religion. Osiris, a just king, was murdered by his brother Seth, who seized the throne. Isis searched for her husband's body, restored it, and through her magic conceived a son by him. That son, Horus, grew up to avenge his father and reclaim the kingship. Osiris became ruler of the underworld and judge of the dead, while the living pharaoh was identified with Horus.

So the triad is also political. A king who wore this jewel placed himself inside a family of gods whose story guaranteed order over chaos, the legitimate succession of son after father, and life beyond death. Placing Osiris on a pillar raises him above the other two like a cult statue on its pedestal.

How it was made

The figures are cast and worked in solid gold, with fine chasing on the details: the pleats of Horus's kilt, the feathers of his falcon head, the layered wig of Isis. The lapis lazuli was imported from distant Badakhshan in present-day Afghanistan, a measure of the object's value. Gold, which does not tarnish, was thought to be the flesh of the gods, and lapis their hair. A band of inlay runs around the base. The craftsmanship represents the court jewelers of the Delta at their most refined.

Close looking

Look at the symmetry and then at how it is broken. Horus and Isis mirror each other in pose, each with an inner arm raised and an outer arm lowered, but Horus strides with his left foot forward in the traditional male pose, while Isis stands with feet close together. Look at the hands: the raised palms are flat and open, a gesture that both protects and venerates. And notice the scale: Osiris, on his pillar, is the smallest figure but the highest, which tells you who matters most.

Gold, lapis and the gods

The choice of materials was theological as well as luxurious. Egyptian texts describe the gods as having flesh of gold, bones of silver and hair of lapis lazuli, and temple images were made from precious materials to house the god's presence. The deep blue stone also evoked the night sky and the waters of creation, while gold carried the light of the sun god Ra and the promise of rebirth. A royal amulet combining the two set the king's body under the protection of the most powerful divine family, in life and in the tomb.

Small precious images of gods were common in the Third Intermediate Period, when Egypt was divided among rival dynasties and the kings of the Delta poured wealth into temples and burial goods. The royal tombs at Tanis, discovered in 1939–40, produced gold masks, coffins and jewelry of the same dynasty, and they give a sense of the workshops that could produce a piece like this.

Where is the Triad of Osorkon today?

The triad is in the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Musée du Louvre in Paris (inventory E 6204), which acquired it in 1872. It is one of the most celebrated small objects in the collection.

Note: the piece is sometimes wrongly described online as bronze. It is gold and lapis lazuli.

Related works

For the Egyptian love of the afterlife in another key, see the Death in Art collection; for later Greek gods in sculpture, see Seated Zeus and the Greek Statues collection. Mythological imagery across cultures is gathered in Greek Mythology in Art.