For the Egyptians, Serapis or Osiris was the Lord of life and death and so the mystery cult was an important part of his worship. By identifying himself with Osiris, the initiate became immortal.

The popularity of the cult was sustained for another four centuries, based on its offer of immortality to its followers and its majestic ceremonial. The last recorded festival of Isis was held in Rome in 394 AD but it was one of the last of the old faiths to die out, surviving less flamboyantly—it was illegal—against the Christian onslaught until the fifth century AD

“I am the Resurrection and the Life”
is essentially what the Egyptians chanted about their god Osiris, the judge of the dead. He had been slain by “the powers of darkness” embodied in his wicked brother, Set. His sister and wife, Isis, had sought the fragments of his body and put them together again and he had arisen from the dead, and was enthroned in the world of souls, to judge every man according to the weight of his works. The resurrection of Osiris was the basis of the Egyptian’s firm hope of eternal life. Every year Egyptians mourned for days over the slaying of Osiris and then rejoiced exceedingly over his resurrection.

In Pompeii, the cult of Isis was one of the most successful mystery cults. Her temple was quickly rebuilt after the 62 A.D. earthquake which preceded the volcanic eruption of 79 A.D. Her temple in the Roman town, situated near the theatre, was surrounded by high walls, with the entrance placed so that it was impossible to view the ceremonies from outside.

The loving pair annoyed the prince of darkness, Set, whose father, Seb, is the equivalent of the Roman Saturn. Osiris was murdered by Set, who enticed Osiris to enter a handsome chest, fastened it down with molten lead, and had it flung into the Nile. The desolated Isis sought her brother and lover high and low. This search for the missing god or goddess is a common feature, and was dramatically represented in all the old mysteries. The chest was washed up on the coast of Syria and became lodged in the trunk of a tree which grew to such proportions that it was eventually cut down and used in as a column of the palace at Byblos with the coffin inside the trunk. Isis eventually found it there. After an interlude that smacks of the Demeter and Brimos story, she took the chest and set the tree in a temple swathed in linen like the tree of Attis.

Back in Egypt, Isis lay in the form of a hawk upon the dead body of Osiris and thus miraculously conceived her son Horus. Or she left the coffin at a place in Egypt while she went to see Horus. The evil Set found the body of Osiris and tore it into fourteen pieces, and scatted them. Isis painstakingly sought the parts of Osiris’s body and Isis and Horus put them together. As the wings of Isis fluttered over the corpse, Ra then reanimated him, and Osiris was resurrected. But, to confuse Set, Isis effected to have each part buried where she found it, which is why there were fourteen graves of Osiris in Egypt. But she could not find a penis which the fishes had swallowed, and had to make a synthetic one to conceive, in this version, their child Horus. Osiris then reigned as the king of the dead while Horus reigned on earth. At the core of this myth is a doctrine of a beneficent god slain by the powers of darkness and rising again from the dead.

Unfortunately, Set came across the box one night when he was out hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events and determined not to be outdone, he murdered Osiris once again . . . this time hacking his body into 14 pieces and throwing them in different directions knowing that they would be eaten by the crocodiles.

The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found new pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.

But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The fourteenth, his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she fashioned one from gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of embalming, and speaking some words of magic, Isis brought her husband back to life.

Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave birth to Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that having the infant would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free to descend to become the King of the Underworld, ruling over the dead and the sleeping.

His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye.

The goal of blending Platonism with the cult of Osiris's powerful myth of his resurrection became more popular.  However these mystery religions valued fundamental truths for salvation of an individual soul rather than the thaios or group soul.  The syncretic effort sought to blend the local god with Osirus resulting in a series of gods who became known as Osiris-Dionysus.

Thoth: the ibis-headed god of Hermopolis; the scribe of the gods, the inventor of writing, and the great god of all knowledge; the ape as well as the ibis are sacred to him. In the judgment of the dead he was the scribe who recorded the confessions and affirmations of the dead on his scrolls, and also kept a record of who went into paradise and who was eaten by the dogs of judgment.

The national festival of Osiris lasted eighteen days and included a most elaborate ritual in the temple. At Sais, one of the centers of the Osiris cult, this myth was annually celebrated in November, the period of sowing the corn in Egypt, in a sacred and solemn ceremony. Inscriptions and bas-reliefs in the temples show that the image of Osiris was buried, and in the end he was shown rising from his bier under the spreading wings of Isis. The death of Osiris caused the Nile to flood and the land to become fertile.

There were four days of mourning and lamentation over the dead god, whose sufferings were represented as a sacred drama on a lake at night, while the people lit lamps to illuminate their houses and allowed to burn all night in honour of the god in particular and the deceased in general. This is reminiscent of the Christian festival of All Souls held on November 1st between Halloween on October 31st and the Meso-American holiday, Day of the Dead on November 2.  which is now celebrated throughout North America with altars honoring the dead.
Among other things, candles are burnt all night in honour of the dead. Though the Church only recognized this ceremony in 998 AD, Sir James Frazer has shown that it was simply incorporating the ancient Pagan custom. The festival of All Saints held one day earlier was recognized in 835 AD and undoubtedly has the same origin.

Astarte image on coin. She was an ancient [1200 BC] principal goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the productive power of nature. She was a lunar goddess and was adopted by the Egyptian often pictured naked and also associated with war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Astarte also was identified with the lioness warrior goddess Sekhmet

Isis in hieroglyphs

.or

Fond of the young boy, Isis decided to bestow immortality on him. As she was holding the royal infant over the fire as part of the ritual, the Queen entered the room. Seeing her son smoldering in the middle of the fire, Astarte instinctively (but naively) grabbed the child out of the flames, undoing the magic of Isis that would have made her son a god.

When the Queen demanded an explanation, Isis revealed her identity and told Astarte of her quest to recover her husband's body. As she listened to the story, Astarte realized that the body was hidden in the fragrant tree in the center of the palace and told Isis where to find it.

Sheltering his broken body in her arms, the goddess Isis carried the body of Osiris back to Egypt for proper burial. There she hid it in the swamps on the delta of the Nile river.

Unfortunately, Set came across the box one night when he was out hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events and determined not to be outdone, he murdered Osiris once again . . . this time hacking his body into 14 pieces and throwing them in different directions knowing that they would be eaten by the crocodiles.

The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found new pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.

But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The

 fourteenth, his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she fashioned one from gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of embalming, and speaking some words of magic, Isis brought her husband back to life.

Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave birth to Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that having the infant would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free to descend to become the King of the Underworld, ruling over the dead and the sleeping.

His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye.

A sistrum is a percussion instrument. It has disks that make noise when you rattle them. The carved head that is on the handle of the sistrum, is Hathor, the goddess of music. A sistrum was used in religious ceremonies and temple rituals. The sistrum kept the beat for the orchestra, which consisted of harps, flutes, oboes, clarinets, tambourines, and trumpets. The sistrum was played in the Old Kingdom time period (2500 B.C.). It is still played today in Ethiopian churches.

-- Lay of the Harpist

In Egypt, women were much more free than their counterparts in other lands... though they were not equal with men, both men and women in Egypt accepted that everyone had their roles in ma'at (the natural order of the universe)... and that the roles of men and women were different.

"but the Egyptians themselves, in most of their manners and customs, exactly the reverse the common practices of mankind. For example, the women attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home and weave at the loom... The women likewise carry burdens upon their shoulders while the men carry them upon their heads... Sons need not support their parents unless they chose, but daughters must, whether they chose to or not."
-- Herodotus  Book II,

The midwinter festival of the ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus (the prototype of the earthly king) son of Isis (the divine mother-goddess). It was 12 days long, reflecting their 12-month calendar. This concept took firm root in many other cultures.

It is based on what appears to be a form of ancient zodiacal division of dividing the twelve days into four quadrants of three days per quadrant. This was done in the British Isles and it extended through Germany and German Austria into western Europe.

From the weather on each of the twelve days it was possible to divine the weather of each successive month of the year. It was held to be accurate and apply also to the Twelfth day itself where the weather on each hour would determine the weather for the corresponding month. The days were thus a system of divination for the year ahead in its agricultural aspects.

In 567 AD, Christians adopted it. Church leaders proclaimed the 12 days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season.

The ritual of the nativity, as it was celebrated in Syria and Egypt was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines from which at midnight they issued a loud cry,
The Virgin has brought forth! The Light is waxing!
(Cosmas Hierosolymitanus, see fn. 3 to p. 303)

No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte

The ecstatic frenzies which were mistaken for divine inspiration, the mangling of the body and the theory of a new birth and the remission of sin through the shedding of blood, have all their origin in savagery
 

Marble head of a Ptolemaic queen with Vulture headdress - 1st century B.C.
 Musei Capitolini, Rome