Dionysus as a God of the Underworld: A Comparative Study with Osiris

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Greek and Roman Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University, Egypt

Abstract

This paper seeks to find out the nature of Dionysus as a god of the dead and his relationship with the underworld of the Greeks as a starting point to trace this aspect of his worship during the era of the Roman Empire through the references of Greek and Roman sources about the god and his worship as the Lord of the dead. Further, the study reveals the ways the Roman arts depicted the myths of the god and the rites of his worship. It also includes a comparison of Dionysus with the Egyptian god of the dead Osiris because of the similarity between the myths of both regarding the return to life after death, and that both represent a foreign deity worshiped in the Roman Empire. Through the evidences included in the paper and their discussions, I reached a number of results regarding the nature of the eschatological role that Dionysus and Osiris played in relation to his followers, and the areas of similarities and differences between them; The ceremonies of the worship of each of the two gods included the representation of his legend, and they can be matched in terms of their symbolic role as an embodiment of the idea of ​​resurrection and immortality, but the role of each of them and the way to achieve human salvation in the other world differed. 

Keywords

References

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