Rostau (Restau) was one ancient Egyptian name for the area of the Giza plateau, which was the location of the necropolis of ancient Egypt even before the great pyramids were built. So this place Rostau would be the place where the bodies were interred, which were caves/tombs or openings in the earth, which we would call a grave, i.e. a place of rest, from Proto-Germanic *rasto- (also source of Old Saxon resta, "resting place", "burial-place").
Osiris, also transliterated as Usiris, wsjr, Asar, Asari, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, Usire, Ausar, is the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld or, the world down under, you know, the austrailis (Latin for, "southern") land, i.e., the land of the dead. Osiris was ruler of the dead, but called "king of the living," because the land of the dead 𓇽, called the Duat (Tuat), was the land of the ntrw, neteru, i.e., the gods/beings who were the "living ones".
Osiris was actually the god of regeneration and rebirth.
Osiris
In Egyptian mythology the body of Osiris is torn apart by his brother Set, and scattered, but Isis gathers the pieces of his body and brings them together for proper burial. So, you could say Osiris was "resting in pieces". He went to the "opening" to enter the land of the dead when he died (or was diced, "cut up") and was buried. Or might we call it the land of the djed, dd, ?
Raising the Djed Pillar
Anyway, the land of Osiris, or land of the djed, known as the Duat or Tuat, is the land of the dead.
The word dead is said to come from a past-participle adjective based on *dau-, which is said to be perhaps from (PIE) *dheu- (3) "to die"[OE]. In German the word for "dew" is tau. Dew is said to come from [perhaps] PIE root *dheu-, "to flow"[OE]. The word "die" comes from the same root, *dheu - (3) "to pass away, die, become senseless". When someone dies, drops of water dew from our eyes.
The word for "day" in Latin is dies. And isn't a day something that is flowing, constantly in motion, and passing away? A day is change. Change only happens to those who are in the flesh, to those who are able to die and be judged on the "day of wrath," dies irae.
Sometimes the dies, i.e.,"day" and/or death / dying is a bloody thing.
You can dye clothes.
When you dye cloth you change the hue, or color. Cloth can be dyed red, like blood.
Holi - Hindu festival of colors
The garment of the gods is white, bright and pure. But the adam "man", was given the hue ("color, skin"), a hue-man, of the earth or ground (adamah, "red/bloody earth"). Because the adam was made in the dies, "day", the flow, or passing away of creation, he (he/her/they) became mortal, or susceptible to death.
One dye used to make a scarlet or crimson color for garments was called "grain", from the color of the granada, i.e., pomegranate ("apple with many seeds").
Persephone ate the "grains", or "seeds"(in Latin, granum) of the pomegranate when she was in Hades, the land of the dead. The god Hades (Αιδης), the earliest written form being Aides, and proposed to be from the Proto-Greek *Awides (meaning "unseen"), "from privative prefix a- + idein 'to see' (from PIE root *weid- 'to see')[OE]." Was the idea (from weid, "to see", who tricked (so he was also a "weed", i.e., pest) Persephone into eating the seeds, the grains, that caused her to have to stay in the land of the dead. The whole point was know return; gnosis.
Why did she have to remain in the land of the dead just for eating some seeds? Perhaps because the seeds stood for certain knowledge that was gained (in'grain'ed) into her mind, or a "knowing" that causes irrevocable change, such as the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve went and ate the bloody forbidden fruit of the tree of da'ath "knowledge" and received death, muth / mooth in Hebrew.
And thus, it is the mooth-er (or mother, matter), i.e., the bringer of death (mooth) / da'ath (knowledge) who is vilified for being an agent of change. God is singular, i.e., he is the monad. However, he makes creatures of "two", or *dheu, those who "flow, change, pass away". In other words they die, they are hue-man. They have a dheu-al nature, duality, two-ality, i.e., matter + spirit.
In certain traditions Death is personified as a woman, such as Śmierć ("smirk") and Pestula ("pest, pestilence", and "pestle", i.e., a grinder).
The ancient Egyptian goddess Mut / Maut / Moat, meaning "mother", was the primordial mother, or waters of creation, i.e., the abyss. Her heiroglyph was the white vulture. The priestesses of the vulture goddess, Nekhbet, were called muu (mothers). Her city was Nekhbet, the city of the dead, or the original necropolis.
However, today vultures aren't usually thought of as being a positive symbol.
And, generally, neither is Death. The figure of Death is often pictured as the reaper.
He is Cronos or Saturn with his scythe.
Saturn
But if he was the reaper, then he was also the sower, for, you reap what you sow. The sower, or seeder, is also the reaper. What he reaps is the grain, i.e., the "seed" sprouted and reborn.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24
And the crimson dye, or red seed of the pomegranate is also called "grain". It is symbolic, then, of the bloody body of the god, the piece ("bit") of the god buried in the ground which sprouts and brings forth life abundantly.
Osiris-Nepra, with wheat growing from his body, from a base relief, Philae
However, since the place of burial is called the opening, rostau, it can also be equated with the mouth. The R heiroglyph is "mouth" in ancient Egyptian, so rostau is, "mouth" + stau (tau, T). In fact the heiroglyph for "mouth," is a mandorla ("almond") i.e., vesica pisces shape .
Iesous Xristos Theou Yios Sotare
A ros-tau (place of the dead) is also the shape of a tau-ros, or an ankh (tau + ros [loop / circular), the symbol for "life" and the cross of Christ in Christianity (σταυρός / stauros).
[Notice the row of ankh's under the body of Osiris-Nepra in the picture above]
Tau + Ros, The Halloween Tarot
The body of the god, then, would go in the "opening" or "mouth", hopefully to sprout and be resurrected (from Latin resurgere to "rise again"[re "again" + surgere "to rise", or we might say, taking the ancient Egyptian, rise from the mouth (re) or the grave, like Osiris, and bear fruit. Once resurrected the god joins the living ones in the Duat and is able to . . . rest in peace.
R. I. P.
This compilation of etymological connections tingles my senses like the brightening leaves of autumn. You're the best!
ReplyDeleteThanks Therin <3
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