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THE NAllONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



built in premeditated conne ::ion with the 

 royal tombs, lying also abc e it and per- 

 haps some half mile to the - est. No one 

 doubts that both the royal :ombs and this 

 vast complex of pillars and chambers, 

 which we now call the National Chapel 

 of Seti and Rameses, were both dedi- 

 cated to Osiris. The waHs of the latter 

 building are decorated with noble por- 

 traits of this god and the texts contain 

 constant homage for his cult of the res- 

 urrection. 



No one doubts that the Osireion itself 

 w^as built in honor of this god of the 

 future life. On its walls are the very 

 decorations which Horus is recorded as 

 having made in the tomb of his father 

 Osiris, and its inscriptions from the Book 

 of the Dead and Am-Tuat deal almost ex- 

 clusively with this world of the after-hfe. 



OSIRIS W^\S TO ABYDOS W^HAT DIANA W^\S 

 TO EPHESUS 



No one doubts that the relic of Osiris, 

 "The Living One," preserved here and 

 carried in all the great religious proces- 

 sions, was the chief glory of Abydos as 

 truly as the image of Diana was the chief 

 glory of Ephesus. No one doubts that 

 the cult of Osiris Unefer, "The Good 

 Being," dominated Egypt for thousands 

 of years in a way scarcely paralleled else- 



where in all history, for upon Osiris, 

 "King of Amenti," "Ruler of the Under- 

 world," "Lord of Might Smiting the 

 Fiend," rested every hope of immortality 

 which could be cherished by the hundred 

 million Egyptians who died during the 

 dynastic period. 



No wonder the Egyptians loved him 

 and buried the sacred sites at Abydos 

 under tens of thousands of votive offer- 

 ings and produced here millennium after 

 millennium the first great Miracle Play of 

 History, which presented in dramatic and 

 realistic form the story of the death and 

 revivification of this "Golden One of 

 Millions of Years." 



No one doubts that somewhere in con- 

 nection with the temple or tombs of Aby- 

 dos was celebrated, presumably under- 

 ground, the "Alysteries of Osiris," fa- 

 mous throughout the entire ancient world, 

 by which kings and nobles were so pow- 

 erfully affected that the grave lost its 

 horror and they could look without fear 

 toward the setting sun of life. 



No wonder that one dreams dreams 

 and sees visions, sitting in the dusk close 

 to the Osireion, with the mementos of the 

 mighty dead all about one, and the hope 

 of a future life written big in every text 

 inscribed on every wall built upon these 

 sands. 



Note. — Through inadvertence on the part of 

 the writer of the article in the March num- 

 ber of the Nationai, Geographic Magazine, 

 entitled "Excavations at Quirigua, Guatemala," 

 no mention was made of the financial support 

 which rendered this work possible. The para- 

 graph should have appeared as follows : 



"During the months of February, March, 

 and April the St. Louis Archeological Society 

 and the United Fruit Company maintained in 



the field at Quirigua, Guatemala, an archeolog- 

 ical expedition, the work being under the di- 

 rection of the School of American Archeology." 

 It is a matter of regret to all who have been 

 connected with the work, and especially to the 

 writer of the article, that no mention of it 

 should have been made in the article of the 

 Nationae Geographic Magazine. Therefore 

 it is hoped that this note will remedy the 

 oversight. 



