Neb-ankh
a name Osiris goes by, not a god of his own
Identified
Group: "The Names of Osiris in Every Shrine Wherein He Dwelleth" — a numbered list in the Theban Recension, about B.C. 1600 [budge-1904]. The opening of it:
1. Asar Un-nefer · 2. Asar Ankhti · 3. Asar Neb-ankh · 4. Asar Neb-er-tcher · 5. Asar Khenti- · 6. Asar Sah · 7. Asar Saa · 8. Asar Khenti-peru · 9. Asar Em Resenet · 10. Asar Em Mehenet · 11. Asar Nub-heh · 12. Asar Bati-erpit · 13. Asar Ptah-neb-Ankh · 14. Asar Khenti Re-stau · 15. Asar Her-ab-semt · 16. Asar Em Ati…
Every item begins with Asar — Osiris. The census carried the third one with the Asar stripped off.
Neb-ankh means "lord of life." It is not a god; it is Osiris in a particular shrine, and the list exists precisely to enumerate which name he answers to where.
He is in the list twice
No. 3 is Asar Neb-ankh. No. 13 is Asar Ptah-neb-Ankh — the same epithet with Ptah compounded into it, presumably the Memphite shrine, where Osiris and Ptah share a great deal (see sokar).
Two shrines, one epithet, one god. Which is the whole point of the chapter and the reason a name from it cannot stand alone.
A third occurrence, and it is not Osiris
Batch 109 found the same string opening a different roster entirely — the twelve gods who praise Ra at dawn in the Twelfth Division of the Am-Tuat: "1. Neb-ankh · 2. Hr… · 3. Neb-Aa · 4. Neb-Tuat…" [budge-1906]. See neb-aa.
That is not an Osiris shrine-name. It is the first of twelve figures standing upright with both hands raised, in the hour of the sunrise.
So this entry's identification was correct and incomplete. Asar Neb-ankh is Osiris under a shrine-name, in both recensions of the name-lists — and Neb-ankh on its own is also the name of a distinct figure in the Am-Tuat. The census slug could be either. Recorded rather than resolved (C336, C379), and note that the feminine Nebt-ankh is a third thing again (see neb-t-ankh).
Trap form 2, with the pieces the other way round
The usual version of this trap takes the first element of a compound (neb-pehti, a door). Here the census took the second and third, dropping the divine name that governs them. See the Epithet Trap.
The rest of this list is a standing hazard. Un-nefer, Neb-er-tcher, Sah, Saa, Nub-heh, Bati-erpit are all real strings that a scraper could lift, and several are also genuine independent deities elsewhere. Anything matching this list should be checked against it before being written up as a god.
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, ch. X, "The Names of Osiris in Every Shrine Wherein He Dwelleth," Theban Recension, *c.* 1600 BC, pp. 176–177 | **Asar Neb-ankh** as no. 3 in the list, and **Asar Ptah-neb-Ankh** as no. 13 |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vol. II. Public domain, archived. A transcribed and dated list — Budge recording, not interpreting.
Open questions
- Read the whole list. Budge numbers past twenty and the passage read stops at 20. The complete set of Osiris' shrine-names is a page in itself, and it is the single best defence against this class of error.
- Cross-check every item against the census. Sah and Saa in particular are in this corpus as independent gods — establish whether the census entries are those gods or these epithets.
- Why Ptah in no. 13? Osiris-Ptah-Neb-ankh compounds three names. The Memphite Ptah-Seker-Osiris is well known; this may be the same fusion under a different order.
- Date the recension. Budge gives "about B.C. 1600" without a manuscript. Which papyrus?
Cite this entry
Research grade: ⇄duplicate — A second spelling or roster listing of a name entered elsewhere.
"Neb-ankh", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded duplicate, retrieved 2026-08-10.