Osiris

The Greek rendering of the Egyptian god of the dead, Asar.

According to the historian, Herodotus, the Egyptian god Osiris was somehow equated with the Greek god of wine, Dionysus; he states that the only two gods worshipped throughout Egypt were Isis and Osiris; exactly how Osiris and Dionysus are similar or equal is not explained.

The name of Osiris raises an interesting problem in our modern use of his name and the common rendering of ancient names in general; for example, when we use the Greek names of the builders of the three Egyptian pyramids at Giza, we normally use the Greek renderings of all three names, i.e. Kheops, Khephren and Mykerinus (the Egyptian names for the same three men are: Kufu, Khafre and Menkaure); we can correctly use the Greek or the Egyptian names but to mix the Greek and Egyptian names would be confusing and incorrect.

If you were to say, The Greeks called the Egyptian god of the dead Osiris, you would be correct, but if you were to say, The Egyptian god of the dead was Osiris, you would be incorrect, i.e. his Egyptian name was Asar.

• Histories, book 2, chapters 42, 47, 123, 144 and 156