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The Osireion at Abydos
13 October 2026
The Osireion is a sunken stone building directly behind the temple of Seti I at Abydos, built in the reign of Seti I (c. 1294–1279 BC) as a cenotaph: a tomb with no body, where the king shared the burial of Osiris. From the rim you look down on a hall of huge granite pillars standing on an island in groundwater. That hall is almost bare. The writing is in the long entrance passage and in the chamber behind the hall.
Those walls hold the oldest known copies of several books about the night: the sun's passage through the underworld and the sky goddess who swallows and bears it again. Most visitors see them only in photographs, so it pays to know what is there before you stand at the edge.
Seti I's name is on the stones
Some writers date the building far earlier than Seti because of the plain, massive style of the hall. Seti's cartouches appear on the building, and later excavations found its ancient name: "Menmaatre is beneficial to Osiris". Archaeologists date it to his reign.
Menmaatre is Seti's throne name, mn-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ: the sun disc (N5) for Ra, the goddess Maat (C10) and the game board (Y5) for mn, "Eternal is the justice of Ra". The same cartouche fills the temple in front, so learn it there first.
Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray found the building in their excavations of 1902–1903. Centuries after Seti, priests of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties scratched notes in the entrance passage calling it "the hidden place of the underworld of Menmaatre".
The entrance passage holds the oldest Book of Caverns
A stone-lined tunnel about 69 metres long leads down to the hall. Its two walls face each other with two different guides to the night. One side carries the Book of Gates, in which the sun god passes the gates of the twelve hours of night, each guarded by a serpent. The other carries the Book of Caverns, and this copy is the oldest known: almost complete, with only its top register damaged.
The Book of Caverns shows the sun visiting the body of Osiris in the underworld and punishing the enemies of order before it rises again. Its scenes run in long registers, with the text in columns beside the figures.
Part of the decoration was completed only under Seti's grandson Merneptah.
Granite pillars stand on an island in the hall
The hall is the part everyone photographs: a stone island in the middle, ringed by a channel of water, with massive red granite pillars standing on it. The island is usually read as the first mound of earth that rose from the waters at creation. Seventeen small cells open in the walls around it.
Look at the size of the blocks and at the water, which comes from below ground. The Greek geographer Strabo, in the 1st century BC, described a spring at Abydos lying at great depth, reached by vaulted passages, and excavators gave the basin the name "Strabo's Well".
The sky covers the chamber ceiling
Behind the hall lies the sarcophagus chamber, a long room across the axis. Part of its ceiling survives, and it holds the oldest known copies of two sky books. The Book of Nut shows the goddess's body arched across the heavens, with texts on the sun's daily course and the 36 decans, star groups that marked the hours of night. The Book of the Night follows the sun hour by hour through her body.
One section of the Book of Nut explains how to make and use a shadow clock, an L-shaped instrument for telling the hours of the day. It is a practical text among the religious ones.
Two signs recur across this ceiling: the sky (N1), pt, said "pet", a flat slab that is also Nut's body, and the star (N14), sbꜣ, said "seba", repeated across the hours of night.
Osiris's name heads the signs to learn
Osiris's own name is the first to learn. It is written wsir, said "wesir": the seat or throne (Q1) and the eye (D4), often followed by the seated god (A40).
Visitors see the Osireion from the rim
Most of the time the Osireion is seen from above, and parts of it can be flooded or closed. Ask at the Seti I temple what is open on the day. A zoom lens or the phone's telephoto shows the pillars. The inscribed passages lie out of sight from the rim.
For reading, the temple next door is the better wall. Its chapels and the Gallery of the Lists carry the same king's names in crisp relief at eye level. Point the camera at one column at a time, and trace any worn sign over your photo.
Questions
Is the Osireion older than the pyramids?
Egyptologists say no. The cartouches of Seti I on the building, its ancient name and its texts all date it to his reign, around 1294–1279 BC. Claims of a much older date rest on its plain style.
Can you go inside the Osireion?
Usually not. Visitors look down into it from the edge, and the hall stands in groundwater. Access changes, so ask on site.
Why is the Osireion full of water?
It was built deep below the temple's floor, down to the level of the groundwater. The water around the island seems to have been part of the design, an image of the first waters around the first land.
What is a cenotaph?
A tomb with no body in it. Seti I was buried in the Valley of the Kings. The Osireion gave him a second, symbolic tomb at Abydos, the holy city of Osiris.
Glossary
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- Maat
- Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
- priest
- A servant of a god in a temple, who washed, dressed and fed the god's statue each day. A high priest led the staff of a great temple.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- relief
- A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
- sarcophagus
- A large stone coffin. In rich burials it held one or more coffins of wood.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
- Valley of the Kings
- A desert valley on the west bank at Luxor where the New Kingdom kings were buried in tombs cut into the rock, Tutankhamun among them.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Osireion monument
- Temple of Seti I at Abydos monument
- Abydos site
Sources
More to read
- Reading the tombs of the Valley of the Queens The Valley of the Queens at Luxor: Nefertari's tomb, the tombs of Ramesses III's sons and the guardian gods of the gates on their walls, read in place.
- Reading the Pyramid Texts in the pyramid of Unas Reading the Pyramid Texts in the pyramid of Unas at Saqqara: what the walls say, where to look, the signs to learn first and how to read them on the spot.
- Ten inscriptions to read at the Grand Egyptian Museum Ten inscriptions to read at the Grand Egyptian Museum: Tutankhamun's mask, throne and shrines, Ramesses II's colossus and obelisk, and what they say.