Goddess Nephthys plays an great role in the Osirian myth-cycle. It is Nephthys who helps Isis in gathering and mourning the discerp portions of the body of
Osiris, afterwards his murder by the jealous Set. Nephthys also serves as the nursemaid and watchful defender of the infant Horus. The Pyramid Texts bring up to Isis as the "birth-mother" and to Nephthys as the "nursing-mother" of
Horus. Nephthys was attested as one of the four "Great Chiefs" ruling in the Osirian cult-center of Busiris, in the Delta and she comes out to have concerned an honorary view at the hallowed city of
Abydos. No craze is certified for her there, though she certainly laced as a goddess of great importance in the annual rites taken, wherein two chose females or priestesses played the purposes of Isis and Nephthys and performed the certain 'Lamentations of
Isis and Nephthys'. There, at Abydos, Nephthys linked Isis as a mourner in the shrine known as the Osireion. These "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys" were ritual elements of many such Osirian rites in senior ancient Egyptian cult-centers.
Nephthys, as a mortuary goddess (along with Isis,
Neith, and
Serket), was one of the protectresses of the Canopic jars of the Hapi.
God Hapi, one of the
Sons of Horus, guarded the embalmed lungs. Thus we find Nephthys invested with the name, "Nephthys of the Bed of Life," in direct source to her regenerative precedencies on the embalming table. In the city of Memphis, Nephthys was punctually respected with the title "Queen of the Embalmer's Shop," and there related with the jackal-headed
God Anubis as patron.
Nephthys was likewise taken a festive deity whose rites could mandatory the liberal consumption of beer. In distinct reliefs at Edfu,
Dendera, and Behbeit, Nephthys is showed receiving lavish beer-offerings from the Pharaoh, which she would "return", using her power as a beer-goddess "that the pharaoh may have joy with no hangover." Elsewhere at Edfu, for instance, Nephthys is a goddess who applies the Pharaoh power to see "that which is covered by moonlight." This fits well with more frequent textual roots that view Nephthys to be a goddess whose unique area was darkness, or the perilous boundaries of the desert. Nephthys could also seem as one of the goddesses who assists at childbearing. One ancient Egyptian myth continued in the Papyrus Westcar recounts the tale of Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, and Heqet as traveling social dancers in disguise, assisting the wife of a priest of
Amun-Ra as she sets to bring forth sons who are certain for fame and fortune. Nephthys's preventive sciences and status as direct twin of Isis, steeped, as her sister in "words of power," are evidenced by the abundance of faience amulets carved in her likeness, and by her mien in a variety of magical papyri that sought to summon her famously altruistic characters to the aid of mortals.
