RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
So, I want to connect Zeus and Osiris/the Apis bull.
Famously, Zeus, uh, "seduced" Europa, a Phoenician princess from Tyre, while she and her friends were picking flowers by the seashore. To do so, he took the form of a white bull. She noticed him among her father's herds and approached him, and he acted tame. She climbed on his back to ride him around, and he took off, running across the waves to the island of Crete, where Europa became the mother of King Minos and the Minoan kings.
This is interesting because points to another syncretism/absorption. Wikipedia notes:
Once the connection is made, the bull is attacked by Serapis' enemies, and killed, similar to the Osiris myth; depending on the source, he was attacked by Set, or by Typhon, or by monsters sent by Set. So, the bull is killed, and Isis must put him back together again. But while she does that, Serapis must wander the Land of the Dead, where he becomes king. Once he is resurrected, he retains the kingship of the Underworld. I'm thinking instead of necessarily reassuming control of the Sky, he instead becomes regent for Harpocrates, the "young sun".
Famously, Zeus, uh, "seduced" Europa, a Phoenician princess from Tyre, while she and her friends were picking flowers by the seashore. To do so, he took the form of a white bull. She noticed him among her father's herds and approached him, and he acted tame. She climbed on his back to ride him around, and he took off, running across the waves to the island of Crete, where Europa became the mother of King Minos and the Minoan kings.
This is interesting because points to another syncretism/absorption. Wikipedia notes:
I feel like I should be able to meld this with the myth of the Apis bull. Also, Zeus is much, much wilder than Serapis should be -- from what I've read, the Alexandrians, being a Graeco-Egyptian hybrid culture, preferred much soberer gods.
Once the connection is made, the bull is attacked by Serapis' enemies, and killed, similar to the Osiris myth; depending on the source, he was attacked by Set, or by Typhon, or by monsters sent by Set. So, the bull is killed, and Isis must put him back together again. But while she does that, Serapis must wander the Land of the Dead, where he becomes king. Once he is resurrected, he retains the kingship of the Underworld. I'm thinking instead of necessarily reassuming control of the Sky, he instead becomes regent for Harpocrates, the "young sun".
