In the ancient days of the world, when the gods walked the black soil of Kemet, Osiris reigned as the Great King, bringing civilization, agriculture, and the sacred laws to the people of the Nile. His rule was a golden age where the river overflowed its banks with predictable bounty and the hearts of men were filled with peace. However, beneath this tranquility, a dark shadow grew. Set, the brother of Osiris and the lord of the red desert and chaotic storms, burned with a jealousy that could not be quenched. Set viewed the order of Osiris as a cage and sought to dismantle the throne to claim the sovereignty of the world for himself. He watched from the periphery of the court, plotting a scheme that would rely not on brute force, but on the precise measurements of his brother’s very body.
Set secretly obtained the measurements of Osiris’s stature and commissioned the construction of a magnificent chest. This was no ordinary box; it was a masterpiece of ebony and cedar, inlaid with gold, lapis lazuli, and ivory, depicting the constellations and the journey of the sun. It was crafted with such exquisite detail that anyone who looked upon it would be filled with a desire to possess it. Set then organized a grand banquet in the month of Athyr, inviting seventy-two conspirators along with Osiris. As the wine flowed and the celebration reached its height, Set brought out the chest, promising to gift it to whoever could fit perfectly inside its frame. One by one, the guests lay down, but they were either too short or too tall, too wide or too narrow. Finally, with a smile that masked his malice, Set invited his brother to try.
Osiris, suspecting no treachery from his own kin, stepped into the chest and lay down. The fit was perfect, as Set had designed it to be. In that instant, the conspirators rushed forward. They slammed the heavy lid shut and fastened it with nails, pouring molten lead over the seams to ensure no air could enter and no god could escape. The chest, now a coffin, was carried through the night to the Tanitic mouth of the Nile and cast into the churning waters. The river, mourning the loss of its king, carried the vessel out into the Great Green Sea, the Mediterranean. For days and nights, the chest drifted upon the salt tides, guided by the unseen hands of fate, crossing the vast distance from the shores of Egypt to the rugged coast of Phoenicia, until it finally came to rest in the sands near the ancient city of Byblos.
At the edge of the shore where the chest washed up, a miracle occurred. A young tamarisk tree, sensing the divine essence trapped within the wooden box, began to grow with supernatural speed. In a matter of days, its trunk widened and its branches reached toward the heavens, completely enveloping the chest within its core. The tree became the most magnificent specimen in all of Lebanon, its bark shimmering like silver and its leaves exhaling a fragrance that could be smelled for leagues. It was as if the life force of Osiris, even in death, was nourishing the earth, turning the tamarisk into a living monument of his presence. The tree grew so large and so perfect that it became a legend among the people of Byblos, who whispered that it was touched by the hands of the gods.
King Malcander, the ruler of Byblos, heard reports of this singular tree and traveled to the shore to see it for himself. He was so struck by its beauty and the strength of its timber that he ordered his woodsmen to fell it. He wished to use its massive trunk as the central pillar for the roof of his new palace. When the tree was cut, it did not bleed sap, but instead released a perfume so potent it was said to heal the sick. The trunk was hauled to the palace and set upright in the great hall, supporting the weight of the royal residence. Unbeknownst to the King or his Queen, Astarte, the body of the Egyptian god remained hidden deep within the wood, a silent prisoner in the heart of the palace.