Schwartz–Schwartz 1979, 21.

21. Schwartz/Osborne (pl. 29, 28)

a: Mummy of Osiris lying on the back of a lion walking l. on ground line. Behind, Anubis standing, arms raised. To l. and r., Isis and Nephthys with forearms raised.

b: BIBIOYC / AEHIOVW / IAW.

Dark green basalt.

Compare Bonner 10 /CBd-1276/.

The mummification of Osiris by Anubis, the jackal- or dog-headed god of death, is a scene familiar from Pharaonic and Ptolemaic monuments; in the late period this mummification scene commonly appears on funerary stelae.⁵⁹

BIBIOYC may be for BIBΛIOC, possibly an epithet of Osiris or Isis. According to Plutarch (De Iside 15-18, 50) the chest containing the fragments of Osiris's body was carried down the Nile into the Mediterranean and across to Phoenician Byblos. There Isis found her husband’s dismembered corpse, and brought it back to Egypt for mummification. Burial of Osiris at Byblos and an associated Syrian rite are also mentioned in Lucian’s De Syria Dea 7. Alternatively, BIBIOYC might be a magical name, which Lexa has read as “l’âme des âmes.”⁶⁰

⁵⁹ Budge, vol. 2, pp. 131-38; C. Desroches-Noblecourt, Egyptian Wall Paintings from Tombs and TempIes (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1954), pl. 26, from the Ramesside tomb of Amennakht; Piankoff and Rambova, nos. 17, 22, 29; Ancient Art, Myers/Adams 8, 10 Oct. 1974, 135.

⁶⁰ Lexa (above, n. 14), p. 118.