Well, wasn't it Menes (I think that was his name) that originally united the Northern and Southern regions of Egypt? In The Egyptians: by Van Duyn, it is said that the king had 38 state-like regions along the Nile, where he would travel up and down the river for easy access to each group. Now, whether the groups were originally tribes, or if they were appointed is not known.

Perhaps Menes was Osiris in another name?

I voted NO, but I like Si-amun's post about Osiris being real as a concept because in the Egyptian mind he was real. That's a great way to look at it.

The ancient Egyptians did believe that Osiris was their first king, originally a mortal man enthroned by Re, but historically speaking there's no evidence that an actual king ever took that name. In his post Unas mentioned Meni (called Menes by the Greeks), and in the famous kings list at the Osireion at Abydos he is listed as the first king of Egypt. We're not sure yet who the actual first king was, though Meni is certainly a candidate. So is Narmer, though this may be just another part of the titulary of one of the earliest kings. There's even evidence now that a king named Scorpion did indeed exist, though he may have been more of a late predynastic powerful regional ruler than what we think of as pharaoh.

Many Egyptologists share a belief that Osiris was not even originally Egyptian but a deity imported from a foreign culture in the formative stages of distant predynastic times. There's certainly evidence for it. His Egyptian name, for instance, was 3sir or wsir (depending on how you prefer to say it), and this name is not really even Egyptian in nature. And at first Osiris wasn't even the great lord of the dead but a minor fertility god, an aspect he maintained down through the ages. In fact, Anubis was most likely the first lord of the dead, or possibly his canid "cousin" Wepwawet.

They've actually found evidence of a "Scorpion King," though to consider him on par with a pharaoh would be a bit of a stretch. He was probably a very late predynastic ruler, and no doubt the lord of a powerful proto-nome.

There's no question Imhotep was a real man. Enough evidence exists to attest to that, though his tomb has yet to be found. What a find that will someday be! Wouldn't you just want to be there for that one?

The latest spin on the "tomb" of Osiris is a deep shaft tomb on the Giza Plateau that has only recently become explorable to modern excavators because of a drop in the water table--the bottom courses had always been under water in modern times. There are numerous niches and side cavities in which later bodies had been interred, but the very bottom of the tomb is such that it somewhat resembles the Osiride cenotaph built by Seti I at Abydos, complete with a little "island" surrounded by a pool to represent the primeval mound.

Let's be realistic, though. There is no evidence of any substance that Osiris was ever a real, living man--other than in the mythology of ancient Egypt. Many Egyptologists feel that this deity was actually imported from a different culture deep in prehistoric times, and to be sure Osiris was originally a fairly minor fertility god (an aspect which he never lost, even after becoming the premier lord of the dead, supplanting Anubis in that role). Even the Egyptian name by which Osiris went--wsir or 3sir--is not Egyptian in nature, and linguists still struggle over what exactly it may have meant to the ancient Egyptians; we have a hard time trying to translate it today.

Yeah, I'm a hardcore skeptic. Boring old me. I try not to venture beyond what the evidence tells us.

I can add that I love your latest signature artwork, tutness. Very moving.